ESSAYS  ANQ 
CRITIGISMS* 


RL- STEVENSON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


t^^VMPCM./^^^^V't-- 


Digitized  by  tlie  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2008  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/essayscriticismsOOstev 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEFENSON 

From  a  photograph  taken  at  Honolulu 


ESSAYS 
AND  CRITICISMS 


BY 

ROBERT  LOUIS  (STEVENSON 


JpSTON 
SMALL,  MAYNARD   &-   CO. 


MCMVII 


EDITORIAL  NOTE 


-\\ 


N  Essay  sand  Criticisms  the  publish-  P-*]^ 
ers  present  for  the  first  time  this  col-  •  q  ^y^ 
lection  of  Stevenson's  "writings.  Some 
of  them  have  heretofore  appeared  in  the  Ed- 
inburgh and  Thistle  (subscription )  editions, 
but  others  do  not  appear  in  these  editions 
and  are  here  collected  for  the  first  time. 

All  of  them  have  heretofore  appeared  in 
some  periodical,  due  credit  for  which  is  given 
on  page  viii.  In  addition  the  publishers  ivish 
to  acknoii'ledge  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  John 
Lane,  ivho  gave  them  permission  to  here  re- 
produce the  article  entitled  A  Mountain 
Town  in  France. 

In  many  of  these  essays  Stevenson  is  found 
at  his  best,  and  the  reader  seems  to  be  in 
closer  contact  with  the  author  than  in  many 
of  his  more  finished  out  less  intimate  writ- 
ings. His  walking  tours  are  of  especial  in- 
terest at  this  time  when  walking  and  out- 
door sports  are  so  much  in  vogue. 


1561628 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

The  essay  entitled  The  Morality  of  the 
Profession  of  Letters  is  in  reality  his  creed; 
a  noble  creed  it  is  and  few  preachers  have 
more  conscieyitiously  observed  the  rules  laid 
dozen  for  the  regulation  of  their  lives  than 
has  Stevenson,  in  all  his  writings,  observed 
the  rules  that  follow  : 

"  There  are  two  duties  incumbent  on  any 
man  who  enters  07i  the  business  of  writing: 
truth  to  fact  and  a  good  spirit  in  treatment. 
.  .  .  Everything  but  prejudice  should  find  a 
voice  through  him;  he  should  see  the  good 
in  all  things;  where  he  has  even  a  fear  that 
he  does  not  wholly  understand,  there  should 
he  be  wholly  silent:  and  he  should  recognise 
from  the  first  that  he  has  only  one  tool  in 
his  workshop,  and  that  tool  is  sympathy." 


%O^ET{T  LOUIS  STEVEU^SOIK 

"Child  of  delight  and  heir  of  loveliness, 
Great  friend,  whose  followers  would  fain  be  true." 

Richard  'Burton 


FIRST  COLLECTED  EDITION 

Herbert  B.  Turner  &  Co.,  Boston,  1903 

Originally  Published 

I  Portfolio  December, 

II  Portfolio  November, 

III  Portfolio  April,  May, 

IV  Illustrated  London  News 

Summer  Number, 

V  Cornhill  Magazine  May, 

VI  The  Studio  Winter  Number, 

I  Fortnightly  Review  April, 

II  Contemporary  Review  April, 

III  Magazine  of  Art  November, 

IV  British  Weekly  May  13, 


I  Pall  Mall  Gazette 

II  Pall  Mall  Gazette 

III  Pall  Mall  Gazette 

IV  Pall  Mall  Gazette 


February  17, 

February  21, 

February  26, 

March  5, 


.873 
1874 

[875 

1896 
1876 
i8q6 

1881 
188s 

[887 


CONTENTS 

On  the  Road 

I  Roads  i 

II  On  the  Enjoyment  of  Unpleasant 

Places  i 5 

III  An  Autumn  Effect  31 

IV  A  Winter's  Walk  in  Carrick  and 

Galloway  69 

V  Forest  Notes  87 

VI  A  Mountain  Town  in  France  134 

Literary  Papers 

I  The  Morality  of  the  Profession 

OF  Letters  1^7 

II  On  Some  Technical  Elements  of 

Style  in  Literature  178 

III  A  Note  ON  Realism  212 

IV  Books  which  have  Influenced  Me     224 

Swiss  Notes 

I  Health  and  Mountains  239 

II  Davos  in  Winter  247 

III  Alpine  Diversions  254 

IV  The  Stimulation  of  the  Alps  261 


ON  THE  ROAD 


ROADS 


1873 

jO  amateur  will  deny  that  he  can  find 
more  pleasure  in  a  single  drawing, 
over  which  he  can  sit  a  whole  quiet 
forenoon,  and  so  gradually  study  himself 
into  humour  with  the  artist,  than  he  can 
ever  extract  from  the  dazzle  and  accumula- 
tion of  incongruous  impressions  that  send 
him,  weary  and  stupefied,  out  of  some  fa- 
mous pidure-gallery.  But  what  is  thus  ad- 
mitted with  regard  to  art  is  not  extended  to 
the  (so-called)  natural  beauties:  no  amount 
of  excess  in  sublime  mountain  outline  or  the 
graces  of  cultivated  lowland  can  do  any- 
thing, it  is  supposed,  to  weaken  or  degrade 
the  palate.  We  are  not  at  all  sure,  however, 
that  moderation,  and  a  regimen  tolerably 
austere,  even  in  scenery,  are  not  healthful 
and  strengthening  to  the  taste;  and  that  the 
best  school  for  a  lover  of  nature  is  not  to  be 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

found  in  one  of  those  countries  where  there 
is  no  stage  effed  —  nothing  salient  or  sud- 
den,—  but  a  quiet  spirit  of  orderly  and  har- 
monious beauty  pervades  all  the  details,  so 
that  we  can  patiently  attend  to  each  of  the 
little  touches  that  strike  in  us,  all  of  them  to- 
gether, the  subdued  note  of  the  landscape. 
It  is  in  scenery  such  as  this  that  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  right  temper  to  seek  out  small 
sequestered  loveliness.  The  constant  recur- 
rence of  similar  combinations  of  colour  and 
outline  gradually  forces  upon  us  a  sense  of 
how  the  harmony  has  been  built  up,  and  we 
become  familiar  with  something  of  nature's 
mannerism.  This  is  the  true  pleasure  of  your 
"rural  voluptuary," — not  to  remain  awe- 
stricken  before  a  Mount  Chimborazo;  not  to 
sit  deafened  over  the  big  drum  in  the  or- 
chestra, but  day  by  day  to  teach  himself 
some  new  beauty  —  to  experience  some 
new  vague  and  tranquil  sensation  that  has 
before  evaded  him.  It  is  not  the  people  who 
"have  pined  and  hungered  after  nature 
many  a  year,  in  the  great  city  pent,  "as  Cole- 
ridge said  in  the  poem  that  made  Charles 
Lamb  so  much  ashamed  of  himself;  it  is  not 

2 


ROADS 

those  who  make  the  greatest  progress  in 
this  intimacy  with  her,  or  who  are  most 
quick  to  see  and  have  the  greatest  gusto  to 
enjoy.  In  this,  as  in  everything  else,  it  is 
minute  knowledge  and  long-continued  lov- 
ing industry  that  make  the  true  dilettante. 
A  man  must  have  thought  much  over  scen- 
ery before  he  begins  fully  to  enjoy  it.  It  is  no 
youngling  enthusiasm  on  hill-tops  that  can 
possess  itself  of  the  last  essence  of  beauty. 
Probably  most  people's  heads  are  growing 
bare  before  they  can  see  all  in  a  landscape 
that  they  have  the  capability  of  seeing;  and, 
even  then,  it  will  be  only  for  one  little  mo- 
ment of  consummation  before  the  faculties 
are  again  on  the  decline,  and  they  that  look 
out  of  the  windows  begin  to  be  darkened 
and  restrained  in  sight.  Thus  the  study  of 
nature  should  be  carried  forward  thoroughly 
and  with  system.  Every  gratification  should 
be  rolled  long  under  the  tongue,  and  we 
should  be  always  eager  to  analyse  and  com- 
pare, in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  give 
some  plausible  reason  for  our  admirations. 
True,  it  is  difficult  to  put  even  approximately 
into  words  the  kind  of  feelings  thus  called 

3 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

into  play.  There  is  a  dangerous  vice  inherent 
in  any  such  intelleftual  refining  upon  vague 
sensation.  The  analysis  of  such  satisfadions 
lends  itself  very  readily  to  literary  affeda- 
tions ;  and  we  can  all  think  of  instances  where 
it  has  shown  itself  apt  to  exercise  a  morbid 
influence,  even  upon  an  author's  choice  of 
language  and  the  turn  of  his  sentences.  And 
yet  there  is  much  that  makes  the  attempt 
attradive;  for  any  expression,  however  im- 
perfect, once  given  to  a  cherished  feeling, 
seems  a  sort  of  legitimation  of  the  pleasure 
we  take  in  it.  A  common  sentiment  is  one  of 
those  great  goods  that  make  life  palatable 
and  ever  new.  The  knowledge  that  another 
has  felt  as  we  have  felt,  and  seen  things,  even 
if  they  are  little  things,  not  much  otherwise 
than  we  have  seen  them,  will  continue  to 
the  end  to  be  one  of  life's  choicest  pleasures. 
Let  the  reader,  then,  betake  himself  in  the 
spirit  we  have  recommended  to  some  of  the 
quieter  kinds  of  English  landscape.  In  those 
homely  and  placid  agricultural  distrids,  fa- 
miliarity will  bring  into  relief  many  things 
worthy  of  notice,  and  urge  them  pleasantly 
home  to  him  by  a  sort  of  loving  repetition; 
4 


ROADS 

such  as  the  wonderful  Hfe-giving  speed  of 
windmill  sails  above  the  stationary  country; 
the  occurrence  and  recurrence  of  the  same 
church  tower  at  the  end  of  one  long  vista 
after  another:  and,  conspicuous  among 
these  sources  of  quiet  pleasure,  the  chara6ler 
and  variety  of  the  road  itself,  along  which 
he  takes  his  way.  Not  only  near  at  hand,  in 
the  lithe  contortions  with  which  it  adapts 
itself  to  the  interchanges  of  level  and  slope, 
but  far  away  also,  when  he  sees  a  few  hun- 
dred feet  of  it  upheaved  against  a  hill  and 
shining  in  the  afternoon  sun,  he  will  find  it 
an  objeft  so  changeful  and  enlivening  that 
he  can  always  pleasurably  busy  his  mind 
about  it.  He  may  leave  the  river-side,  or  fall 
out  of  the  way  of  villages,  but  the  road  he 
has  always  with  him;  and,  in  the  true  hu- 
mour of  observation,  will  find  in  that  suffi- 
cient company.  From  its  subtle  windings 
and  changes  of  level  there  arises  a  keen  and 
continuous  interest,  that  keeps  the  attention 
ever  alert  and  cheerful.  Every  sensitive  ad- 
justment to  the  contour  of  the  ground,  every 
little  dip  and  swerve,  seems  instinft  with 
life  and  an  exquisite  sense  of  balance  and 

5 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

beauty.  The  road  rolls  upon  the  easy  slopes 
of  the  country,  like  a  long  ship  in  the  hol- 
lows of  the  sea.  The  very  margins  of  waste 
ground,  as  they  trench  a  little  farther  on  the 
beaten  way,  or  recede  again  to  the  shelter  of 
the  hedge,  have  something  of  the  same  free 
delicacy  of  line  —  of  the  same  swing  and 
wilfulness.  You  might  think  for  a  whole 
summer's  day  (and  not  have  thought  it  any 
nearer  an  end  by  evening)  what  concourse 
and  succession  of  circumstances  has  pro- 
duced the  least  of  these  defledions;  and  it 
is,  perhaps,  just  in  this  that  we  should  look 
for  the  secret  of  their  interest.  A  foot-path 
across  a  meadow  —  in  all  its  human  way- 
wardness and  unaccountability,  in  all  the 
grata  protervitas.  of  its  varying  diredion  — 
will  always  be  more  to  us  than  a  railroad 
well  engineered  through  a  difficult  country.' 
No  reasoned  sequence  is  thrust  upon  our  at- 
tention: we  seem  to  have  slipped  for  one 
lawless  little  moment  out  of  the  iron  rule  of 

'  Compare  Blake,  in  the  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell:  "Improvement  makes  straight  roads;  but  the 
irooked  roads,  without  improvement,  are  roads  of  Ge- 
nius." 


ROADS 

cause  and  effeft ;  and  so  we  revert  at  once  to 
some  ot  the  pleasant  old  heresies  of  personi- 
fication, always  poetically  orthodox,  and  at- 
tribute a  sort  of  free-will,  an  adive  and 
spontaneous  life,  to  the  white  riband  of  road 
that  lengthens  out,  and  bends,  and  cun- 
ningly adapts  itself  to  the  inequalities  of  the 
land  before  our  eyes.  We  remember,  as  we 
write,  some  miles  of  fine  wide  highway  laid 
out  with  conscious  aesthetic  artifice  through 
a  broken  and  richly  cultivated  trad  of  coun- 
try. It  is  said  that  the  engineer  had  Hogarth's 
line  of  beauty  in  his  mind  as  he  laid  them 
down.  And  the  result  is  striking.  One  splen- 
did satisfying  sweep  passes  with  easy  tran- 
sition into  another,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
trouble  or  dislocate  the  strong  continuous- 
ness  of  the  main  line  of  the  road.  And  yet 
there  is  something  wanting.  There  is  here 
no  saving  imperfedion,  none  of  those  sec- 
ondary curves  and  little  trepidations  of  di- 
rection that  carry,  in  natural  roads,  our 
curiosity  adively  along  with  them.  One  feels 
at  once  that  this  road  has  not  grown  like  a 
natural  road,  but  has  been  laboriously  made 
to  pattern ;  and  that,  while  a  model  may  be 

7 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

academically  corred  in  outline,  it  will  al- 
ways be  inanimate  and  cold.  The  traveller  is 
also  aware  of  a  sympathy  of  mood  between 
himself  and  the  road  he  travels.  We  have  all 
seen  ways  that  have  wandered  into  heavy 
sand  near  the  sea-coast,  and  trail  wearily 
over  the  dunes  like  a  trodden  serpent:  here 
we  too  must  plod  forward  at  a  dull,  laborious 
pace;  and  so  a  sympathy  is  preserved  be- 
tween our  frame  of  mind  and  the  expression 
of  the  relaxed,  heavy  curves  of  the  roadway. 
Such  a  phenomenon,  indeed,  our  reason 
might  perhaps  resolve  with  a  little  trouble. 
We  might  reflect  that  the  present  road  had 
been  developed  out  of  a  track  spontaneously 
followed  by  generations  of  primitive  way- 
farers; and  might  see  in  its  expression  a  tes- 
timony that  those  generations  had  been  af- 
feded  at  the  same  ground,  one  after  another, 
in  the  same  manner  as  we  are  affeded  to- 
day. Or  we  might  carry  the  refledion  fur- 
ther, and  remind  ourselves  that  where  the 
air  is  invigorating  and  the  ground  firm  under 
the  traveller's  foot,  his  eye  is  quick  to  take 
advantage  of  small  undulations,  and  he  will 
turn  carelessly  aside  from  the  dired  way 


ROADS 

wherever  there  is  anything  beautiful  to  ex- 
amine or  some  promise  of  a  wider  view ;  so 
that  even  a  bush  of  wild  roses  may  perma- 
nently bias  and  deform  the  straight  path  over 
the  meadow;  whereas,  where  the  soil  is 
heavy,  one  is  preoccupied  with  the  labour  of 
mere  progression,  and  goes  with  a  bowed 
head  heavily  and  unobservantly  forward. 
Reason,  however,  will  not  carry  us  the 
whole  way;  for  the  sentiment  often  recurs 
in  situations  where  it  is  very  hard  to  imagine 
any  possible  explanation;  and  indeed,  if  we 
drive  briskly  along  a  good,  well-made  road 
in  an  open  vehicle,  we  shall  experience  this 
sympathy  almost  at  its  fullest.  We  feel  the 
sharp  settle  of  the  springs  at  some  curiously 
twisted  corner;  after  a  steep  ascent,  the  fresh 
air  dances  in  our  faces  as  we  rattle  precipi- 
tately down  the  other  side,  and  we  find  it 
difficult  to  avoid  attributing  something 
headlong,  a  sort  of  abandon,  to  the  road  it- 
self. 

The  mere  winding  of  the  path  is  enough 
to  enliven  a  long  day's  walk  in  even  a  com- 
monplace or  dreary  country-side.  Some- 
thing that  we  have  seen  from  miles  back, 

9 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

upon  an  eminence,  is  so  long  hid  from  us, 
as  we  wander  through  folded  valleys  or 
among  woods,  that  our  expedation  of  see- 
ing it  again  is  sharpened  into  a  violent  ap- 
petite, and  as  we  draw  nearer  we  impatient- 
ly quicken  our  steps  and  turn  every  corner 
with  a  beating  heart.  It  is  through  these  pro- 
longations of  expedancy,  this  succession  of 
one  hope  to  another,  that  we  live  out  long 
seasons  of  pleasure  in  a  few  hours'  walk.  It 
is  in  following  these  capricious  sinuosities 
that  we  learn,  only  bit  by  bit  and  through 
one  coquettish  reticence  after  another,  much 
as  we  learn  the  heart  of  a  friend,  the  whole 
loveliness  of  the  country.  This  disposition 
always  preserves  something  new  to  be  seen, 
and  takes  us,  like  a  careful  cicerone,  to  many 
different  points  of  distant  view  before  it  al- 
lows us  finally  to  approach  the  hoped-for 
destination. 

In  its  connexion  with  the  traffic,  and 
whole  friendly  intercourse  with  the  country, 
there  is  something  very  pleasant  in  that  suc- 
cession of  saunterers  and  brisk  and  busi- 
ness-like passers-by,  that  peoples  our  ways 
and  helps  to  build  up  what  Walt  Whitman 


ROADS 

calls  "the  cheerful  voice  of  the  public  road, 
the  gay,  fresh  sentiment  of  the  road."  But 
out  of  the  great  network  of  ways  that  binds 
all  life  together  from  the  hill-farm  to  the  city, 
there  is  something  individual  to  most,  and, 
on  the  whole,  nearly  as  much  choice  on  the 
score  of  company  as  on  the  score  of  beauty 
or  easy  travel.  On  some  we  are  never  long 
without  the  sound  of  wheels,  and  folk  pass 
us  by  so  thickly  that  we  lose  the  sense  of 
their  number.  But  on  others,  about  little- 
frequented  distrids,  a  meeting  is  an  affair  of 
moment;  we  have  the  sight  far  off  of  some 
one  coming  towards  us,  the  growing  defi- 
niteness  of  the  person,  and  then  the  brief 
passage  and  salutation,  and  the  road  left 
empty  in  front  of  us  for  perhaps  a  great 
while  to  come.  Such  encounters  have  a  wist- 
ful interest  that  can  hardly  be  understood  by 
the  dweller  in  places  more  populous.  We 
remember  standing  beside  a  countryman 
once,  in  the  mouth  of  a  quiet  by-street  in  a 
city  that  was  more  than  ordinarily  crowded 
and  bustling;  he  seemed  stunned  and  be- 
wildered by  the  continual  passage  of  differ- 
ent faces;  and  after  a  long  pause,  during 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

which  he  appeared  to  search  for  some  suit- 
able expression,  he  said  timidly  that  there 
seemed  to  be  a  great  deal  of  meeting  there- 
abouts. The  phrase  is  significant,  it  is  the 
expression  of  town-life  in  the  language  of 
the  long,  solitary  country  highways.  A 
meeting  of  one  with  one  was  what  this  man 
had  been  used  to  in  the  pastoral  uplands 
from  which  he  came;  and  the  concourse  of 
the  streets  was  in  his  eyes  only  an  extraor- 
dinary multiplication  of  such  "meetings." 

And  now  we  come  to  that  last  and  most 
subtle  quality  of  all,  to  that  sense  of  pros- 
ped,  of  outlook,  that  is  brought  so  power- 
fully to  our  minds  by  a  road.  In  real  nature 
as  well  as  in  old  landscapes,  beneath  that 
impartial  daylight  in  which  a  whole  varie- 
gated plain  is  plunged  and  saturated,  the 
line  of  the  road  leads  the  eye  forth  with  the 
vague  sense  of  desire  up  to  the  green  limit 
of  the  horizon.  Travel  is  brought  home  to 
us,  and  we  visit  in  spirit  every  grove  and 
hamlet  that  tempts  us  in  the  distance.  SeJiii- 
siicht — the  passion  for  what  is  ever  beyond 
—  is  livingly  expressed  in  that  white  riband 
of  possible  travel  that  severs   the  uneven 

12 


ROADS 

country ;  not  a  ploughman  following  his 
plough  up  the  shining  furrow,  not  the  blue 
smoke  of  any  cottage  in  a  hollow,  but  is 
brought  to  us  with  a  sense  of  nearness  and 
attainability  by  this  wavering  line  of  junc- 
tion. There  is  a  passionate  paragraph  in 
Werther  that  strikes  the  very  key.  "  When 
I  came  hither,"  he  writes,  "  how  the  beau- 
tiful valley  invited  me  on  every  side,  as  I 
gazed  down  into  it  from  the  hill-top  !  There 
the  wood — ah,  that  1  might  mingle  in  its 
shadows!  there  the  mountain  summits  — 
ah,  that  I  might  look  down  from  them  over 
the  broad  country!  the  interlinked  hills!  the 
secret  valleys  !0,  to  lose  myself  among  their 
mysteries !  1  hurried  into  the  midst,  and  came 
back  without  finding  aught  1  hoped  for. 
Alas!  the  distance  is  like  the  future.  A  vast 
whole  lies  in  the  twilight  before  our  spirit; 
sight  and  feeling  alike  plunge  and  lose  them- 
selves in  the  prosped,  and  we  yearn  to  sur- 
render our  whole  being,  and  let  it  be  filled 
full  with  all  the  rapture  of  one  single  glori- 
ous sensation;  and  alas!  when  we  hasten  to 
the  fruition,  when  there  is  changed  to  here, 
all  is  afterwards  as  it  was  before,  and  we 

'3 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

stand  in  our  indigent  and  cramped  estate, 
and  our  soul  tliirsts  after  a  still  ebbing  elix- 
ir." It  is  to  this  wandering  and  uneasy  spirit 
of  anticipation  that  roads  minister.  Every 
little  vista,  every  little  glimpse  that  we  have 
of  what  lies  before  us,  gives  the  impatient 
imagination  rein,  so  that  it  can  outstrip  the 
body  and  already  plunge  into  the  shadow 
of  the  woods,  and  overlook  from  the  hill- 
top the  plain  beyond  it,  and  wander  in  the 
windings  of  the  valleys  that  are  still  far  in 
front.  The  road  is  already  there  — we  shall 
not  be  long  behind.  It  is  as  if  we  were 
marching  with  the  rear  of  a  great  army,  and, 
from  far  before,  heard  the  acclamation  of  the 
people  as  the  vanguard  entered  some  friend- 
ly and  jubilant  city.  Would  not  every  man, 
through  all  the  long  miles  of  march,  feel  as 
if  he  also  were  within  the  gates? 


'4 


II 

ON  THE  ENJOYMENT  OF 
UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

'874 

^T  is  a  difficult  matter  to  make  the 
most  of  any  given  place,  and  we 
have  much  in  our  own  power. 
Things  looked  at  patiently  from  one  side 
after  another  generally  end  by  showing  a 
side  that  is  beautiful.  A  few  months  ago 
some  words  were  said  in  the  Portfolio  as  to 
an  * '  austere  regimen  in  scenery  " ;  and  such 
a  discipline  was  then  recommended  as 
"healthful  and  strengthening  to  the  taste." 
That  is  the  text,  so  to  speak,  of  the  present 
essay.  This  discipline  in  scenery,  it  must  be 
understood,  is  something  more  than  a  mere 
walk  before  breakfast  to  whet  the  appetite. 
For  when  we  are  put  down  in  some  un- 
sightly neighbourhood,  and  especially  if  we 
have  come  to  be  more  or  less  dependent  on 
what  we  see,  we  must  set  ourselves  to  hunt 

IS 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

out  beautiful  things  with  all  the  ardour  and 
patience  of  a  botanist  after  a  rare  plant.  Day 
by  day  we  perfe(ft  ourselves  in  the  art  of  see- 
ing nature  more  favourably.  We  learn  to  live 
with  her,  as  people  learn  to  live  with  fretful 
or  violent  spouses:  to  dwell  lovingly  on 
what  is  good,  and  shut  our  eyes  against  all 
that  is  bleak  or  inharmonious.  We  learn, 
also,  to  come  to  each  place  in  the  right  spirit. 
The  traveller,  as  Brantome  quaintly  tells  us, 
"fait  dcs  discours  en  sot  pour  se  souteiiir 
en  chemin  " ;  and  into  these  discourses  he 
weaves  something  out  of  all  that  he  sees  and 
suffers  by  the  way;  they  take  their  tone 
greatly  from  the  varying  character  of  the 
scene;  a  sharp  ascent  brings  different 
thoughts  from  a  level  road;  and  the  man's 
fancies  grow  lighter  as  he  comes  out  of  the 
wood  into  a  clearing.  Nor  does  the  scenery 
any  more  affed  the  thoughts  than  the 
thoughts  affed  the  scenery.  We  see  places 
through  our  humours  as  through  differently 
coloured  glasses.  We  are  ourselves  a  term 
in  the  equation,  a  note  of  the  chord,  and 
make  discord  or  harmony  almost  at  will. 
There  is  no  fear  for  the  result,  if  we  can  but 
\6 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

surrender  ourselves  sufficiently  to  the  coun- 
try that  surrounds  and  follows  us,  so  that 
we  are  ever  thinking  suitable  thoughts  or 
telling  ourselves  some  suitable  sort  of  story 
as  we  go.  We  become  thus,  in  some  sense, 
a  centre  of  beauty;  we  are  provocative  of 
beauty,  much  as  a  gentle  and  sincere  char- 
ader  is  provocative  of  sincerity  and  gentle- 
ness in  others.  And  even  where  there  is  no 
harmony  to  be  elicited  by  the  quickest  and 
most  obedient  of  spirits,  we  may  still  em- 
bellish a  place  with  some  attracftion  of  ro- 
mance. We  may  learn  to  go  far  afield  for  as- 
sociations, and  handle  them  lightly  when  we 
have  found  them.  Sometimes  an  old  print 
comes  to  our  aid;  I  have  seen  many  a  spot 
lit  up  at  once  with  piduresque  imaginations, 
by  a  reminiscence  of  Callot,  or  Sadeler,  or 
Paul  Brill.  Dick  Turpin  has  been  my  lay 
figure  for  many  an  English  lane.  And  1  sup- 
pose the  Trossachs  would  hardly  be  the 
Trossachs  for  most  tourists  if  a  man  of  ad- 
mirable romantic  instind  had  not  peopled 
it  for  them  with  harmonious  figures,  and 
brought  them  thither  with  minds  rightly 
prepared  for  the  impression.  There  is  half 

'7 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  battle  in  this  preparation.  For  instance: 
I  have  rarely  been  able  to  visit,  in  the  proper 
spirit,  the  wild  and  inhospitable  places  of 
our  own  Highlands.  I  am  happier  where  it 
is  tame  and  fertile,  and  not  readily  pleased 
without  trees.  1  understand  that  there  are 
some  phases  of  mental  trouble  that  harmo- 
nise well  with  such  surroundings,  and  that 
some  persons,  by  the  dispensing  power  of 
the  imagination,  can  go  back  several  centu- 
ries in  spirit,  and  put  themselves  into  sym- 
pathy with  the  hunted,  houseless,  unsocia- 
ble way  of  life  that  was  in  its  place  upon 
these  savage  hills.  Now,  when  1  am  sad,  I 
like  nature  to  charm  me  out  of  my  sadness, 
like  David  before  Saul;  and  the  thought  of 
these  past  ages  strikes  nothing  in  me  but  an 
unpleasant  pity;  so  that  1  can  never  hit  on 
the  right  humour  for  this  sort  of  landscape, 
and  lose  much  pleasure  in  consequence. 
Still,  even  here,  if  1  were  only  let  alone,  and 
time  enough  were  given,  I  should  have  all 
manner  of  pleasures,  and  take  many  clear 
and  beautiful  images  away  with  me  when  I 
left.  When  we  cannot  think  ourselves  into 
sympathy  with  the  great  features  of  a  coun- 


UNPLEASANT  PL  A  CBS 

try,  we  learn  to  ignore  them,  and  put  our 
head  among  the  grass  for  flowers,  or  pore, 
for  long  times  together,  over  the  changeful 
current  of  a  stream.  We  come  down  to  the 
sermon  in  stones,  when  we  are  shut  out 
from  any  poem  in  the  spread  landscape.  We 
begin  to  peep  and  botanise,  we  take  an  in- 
terest in  birds  and  inserts,  we  find  many 
things  beautiful  in  miniature.  The  reader 
will  recoIle(5t  the  little  summer  scene  in 
Wuthering  Heights  —  the  one  warm  scene, 
perhaps,  in  all  that  powerful,  miserable 
novel  —  and  the  great  feature  that  is  made 
therein  by  grasses  and  flowers  and  a  little 
sunshine :  this  is  in  the  spirit  of  which  1  now 
speak.  And,  lastly,  we  can  go  indoors;  in- 
teriors are  sometimes  as  beautiful,  often  more 
pifturesque,  than  the  shows  of  the  open  air, 
and  they  have  that  quality  of  shelter  of  which 
1  shall  presently  have  more  to  say. 

With  all  this  in  mind,  1  have  often  been 
tempted  to  put  forth  the  paradox  that  any 
place  is  good  enough  to  live  a  life  in,  while 
it  is  only  in  a  few,  and  those  highly  fa- 
voured, that  we  can  pass  a  few  hours  agree- 
ably. For,  if  we  only  stay  long  enough  we 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

become  at  home  ii.  the  neighbourhood. 
Reminiscences  spring  up,  Hke  flowers, 
about  uninteresting  corners.  We  forget  to 
some  degree  the  superior  lovehness  of  other 
places,  and  fall  into  a  tolerant  and  sympa- 
thetic spirit  which  is  its  own  reward  and 
justification.  Looking  back  the  other  day  on 
some  recolledions  of  my  own,  1  was  aston- 
ished to  find  how  much  I  owed  to  such  a 
residence;  six  weeks  in  one  unpleasant 
country-side  had  done  more,  it  seemed,  to 
quicken  and  educate  my  sensibilities  than 
many  years  in  places  that  jumped  more 
nearly  with  my  inclination. 

The  country  to  which  I  refer  was  a  level 
and  treeless  plateau,  over  which  the  winds 
cut  like  a  whip.  For  miles  on  miles  it  was 
the  same.  A  river,  indeed,  fell  into  the  sea 
near  the  town  where  I  resided;  but  the  val- 
ley of  the  river  was  shallow  and  bald,  for  as 
far  up  as  ever  1  had  the  heart  to  follow  it. 
There  were  roads,  certainly,  but  roads  that 
had  no  beauty  or  interest;  for,  as  there  was 
no  timber,  and  but  little  irregularity  of  sur- 
face, you  saw  your  whole  walk  exposed  to 
you  from  the  beginning:  there  was  nothing 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

left  to  fancy,  nothing  to  expeft,  nothing  to 
see  by  the  wayside,  save  here  and  there  an 
unhomely-looking  homestead,  and  here  and 
there  a  soHtary,  speftacled  stone-breaker; 
and  you  were  only  accompanied,  as  you 
went  doggedly  forward,  by  the  gaunt  tele- 
graph-posts and  the  hum  of  the  resonant 
wires  in  the  keen  sea-wind.  To  one  who  had 
learned  to  know  their  song  in  warm  pleas- 
ant places  by  the  Mediterranean,  it  seemed 
to  taunt  the  country,  and  make  it  still  bleaker 
by  suggested  contrast.  Even  the  waste 
places  by  the  side  of  the  road  were  not,  as 
Hawthorne  liked  to  put  it,  "taken  back  to 
Nature  "  by  any  decent  covering  of  vegeta- 
tion. Wherever  the  land  had  the  chance,  it 
seemed  to  lie  fallow.  There  is  a  certain  tawny 
nudity  of  the  South,  bare  sunburnt  plains, 
coloured  hke  a  lion,  and  hills  clothed  only  in 
the  blue  transparent  air;  but  this  was  of  an- 
other description  —  this  was  the  nakedness 
of  the  North ;  the  earth  seemed  to  know  that 
it  was  naked,  and  was  ashamed  and  cold. 

It  seemed  to  be  always  blowing  on  that 
coast.  Indeed,  this  had  passed  into  the  speech 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  they  saluted  each 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

other  when  they  met  with  "Breezy,  breezy," 
instead  of  the  customary  "Fine  day"  of  far- 
ther south.  These  continual  winds  were  not 
hke  the  harvest  breeze,  that  just  keeps  an 
equable  pressure  against  your  face  as  you 
walk,  and  serves  to  set  all  the  trees  talking 
over  your  head,  or  bring  round  you  the  smell 
of  the  wet  surface  of  the  country  after  a 
shower.  They  were  of  the  bitter,  hard,  per- 
sistent sort,  that  interferes  with  sight  and 
respiration,  and  makes  the  eyes  sore.  Even 
such  winds  as  these  have  their  own  merit  in 
proper  time  and  place,  it  is  pleasant  to  see 
them  brandish  great  masses  of  shadow.  And 
what  a  power  they  have  over  the  colour  of 
the  world !  How  they  ruffle  the  solid  wood- 
lands in  their  passage,  and  make  them  shud- 
der and  whiten  like  a  single  willow!  There 
is  nothing  more  vertiginous  than  a  wind  like 
this  among  the  woods,  with  all  its  sights  and 
noises;  and  the  effeft  gets  between  some 
painters  and  their  sober  eyesight,  so  that, 
even  when  the  rest  of  their  pidure  is  calm, 
the  foliage  is  coloured  like  foliage  in  a  gale. 
There  was  nothing,  however,  of  this  sort  to 
be  noticed  in  a  country  where  there  were  no 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

trees  and  hardly  any  shadows,  save  the  pas- 
sive shadows  of  clouds  or  those  of  rigid 
houses  and  walls.  But  the  wind  was  never- 
theless an  occasion  of  pleasure;  for  nowhere 
could  you  taste  more  fully  the  pleasure  of  a 
sudden  lull,  or  a  place  of  opportune  shelter. 
The  reader  knows  what  I  mean;  he  must 
remember  how,  when  he  has  sat  himself 
down  behind  a  dyke  on  a  hill-side,  he  de- 
lighted to  hear  the  wind  hiss  vainly  through 
the  crannies  at  his  back;  how  his  body 
tingled  all  over  with  warmth,  and  it  began 
to  dawn  upon  him,  with  a  sort  of  slow  sur- 
prise, that  the  country  was  beautiful,  the 
heather  purple,  and  the  far-away  hills  all 
marbled  with  sun  and  shadow.  Words- 
worth, in  a  beautiful  passage  of  the  "Pre- 
lude," has  used  this  as  a  figure  for  the  feeling 
struck  in  us  by  the  quiet  by-streets  of  Lon- 
don after  the  uproar  of  the  great  thorough- 
fares ;  and  the  comparison  may  be  turned  the 
other  way  with  as  good  efTed: 

"Meanwhile  the  roar  continues,  till  at  length, 
Escaped  as  from  an  enemy,  we  turn 
Abruptly  into  some  sequester'd  nook, 
Still  as  a  shelter'd  place  when  winds  blow  loud! " 

23 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

I  remember  meeting  a  man  once,  in  a 
train,  wiio  told  me  of  wiiat  must  have  been 
quite  the  most  perfed  instance  of  this  pleas- 
ure of  escape.  He  had  gone  up,  one  sunny, 
windy  morning,  to  the  top  of  a  great  cathe- 
dral somewhere  abroad;  1  think  it  was  Co- 
logne Cathedral,  the  great  unfinished  marvel 
by  the  Rhine;  and  after  a  long  while  in  dark 
stairways,  he  issued  atlast  into  thesunshine, 
on  a  platform  high  above  the  town.  At  that 
elevation  it  was  quite  still  and  warm;  the 
galewasonlyinthelowerstrataoftheair.and 
he  had  forgotten  it  in  the  quiet  interior  of  the 
church  and  during  his  long  ascent;  and  so 
you  may  judge  of  his  surprise  when,  resting 
his  arms  on  the  sunlit  balustrade  and  looking 
over  into  the  Place  far  below  him,  he  saw 
the  good  people  holding  on  their  hats  and 
leaning  hard  against  the  wind  as  they 
walked.  There  is  something,  to  my  fancy, 
quite  perfedt  in  this  little  experience  of  my 
fellow-traveller's.  The  ways  of  men  seem 
always  very  trivial  to  us  when  we  find  our- 
selves alone  on  a  church-top,  with  the  blue 
sky  and  a  few  tall  pinnacles,  and  see  far  be- 
low us  the  steep  roofs  and  foreshortened 
24 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

buttresses,  and  the  silent  aftivity  of  the  city 
streets;  but  how  much  more  must  they  not 
have  seemed  so  to  him  as  he  stood,  not  only 
above  other  men's  business,  but  above  other 
men's  climate,  in  a  golden  zone  like  Apol- 
lo's! 

This  was  the  sort  of  pleasure  I  found  in 
the  country  of  which  1  write.  The  pleasure 
was  to  be  out  of  the  wind,  and  to  keep  it  in 
memory  all  the  time,  and  hug  oneself  upon 
the  shelter.  And  it  was  only  by  the  sea  that 
any  such  sheltered  places  were  to  be  found. 
Between  the  black  worm-eaten  headlands 
there  are  little  bights  and  havens,  well 
screened  from  the  wind  and  the  commotion 
of  the  external  sea,  where  the  sand  and 
weeds  look  up  into  the  gazer's  face  from  a 
depth  of  tranquil  water,  and  the  sea-birds, 
screaming  and  flickering  from  the  ruined 
crags,  alone  disturb  the  silence  and  the  sun- 
shine. One  such  place  has  impressed  itself 
on  my  memory  beyond  all  others.  On  a  rock 
by  the  water's  edge,  old  fighting  men  of  the 
Norse  breed  had  planted  a  double  castle;  the 
two  stood  wall  to  wall  like  semi-detached 
villas;  and  yet  feud  had  run  so  high  between 

25 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

their  owners,  that  one,  from  out  of  a  win- 
dow, shot  the  other  as  he  stood  in  his  own 
doorway.  There  is  something  in  the  juxta- 
position of  these  two  enemies  full  of  tragic 
irony.  It  is  grim  to  think  of  bearded  men  and 
bitter  women  taking  hateful  counsel  together 
about  the  two  hall-fires  at  night,  when  the 
sea  boomed  against  the  foundations  and  the 
wild  winter  wind  was  loose  over  the  battle- 
ments. And  in  the  study  we  may  reconstruct 
for  ourselves  some  pale  figure  of  what  life 
then  was.  Not  so  when  we  are  there;  when 
we  are  there  such  thoughts  come  to  us  only 
to  intensify  a  contrary  impression,  and  as- 
sociation is  turned  against  itself.  1  remem- 
ber walking  thither  three  afternoons  in  suc- 
cession, my  eyes  weary  with  being  set 
against  the  wind,  and  how,  dropping  sud- 
denly over  the  edgeof  the  down,  1  found  my- 
self in  a  new  world  of  warmth  and  shelter. 
The  wind,  from  which  1  had  escaped,  "as 
from  an  enemy,"  was  seemingly  quite  local. 
It  carried  no  clouds  with  it,  and  came  from 
such  a  quarter  that  it  did  not  trouble  the  sea 
within  view.  The  two  castles,  black  and  ru- 
inous as  the  rocks  about  them,  were  still  dis- 

26 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 

tinguishable  from  these  by  something  more 
insecure  and  fantastic  in  the  outline,  some- 
thing that  the  last  storm  had  left  imminent 
and  the  next  would  demolish  entirely.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  render  in  words  the 
sense  of  peace  that  took  possession  of  me 
on  these  three  afternoons.  It  was  helped  out, 
as  I  have  said,  by  the  contrast.  The  shore 
was  battered  and  bemauled  by  previous  tem- 
pests; I  had  the  memory  at  heart  of  the  in- 
sane strife  of  the  pigmies  who  had  erefted 
these  two  castles  and  lived  in  them  in  mu- 
tual distrust  and  enmity,  and  knew  1  had 
only  to  put  my  head  out  of  this  little  cup  of 
shelter  to  find  the  hard  wind  blowing  in  my 
eyes ;  and  yet  there  were  the  two  great  trads 
of  motionless  blue  air  and  peaceful  sea  look- 
ing on,  unconcerned  and  apart,  at  the  tur- 
moil of  the  present  moment  and  the  memo- 
rials of  the  precarious  past.  There  is  ever 
something  transitory  and  fretful  in  the  im- 
pression of  a  high  wind  under  a  cloudless 
sky;  it  seems  to  have  no  root  in  the  consti- 
tution of  things;  it  must  speedily  begin  to 
faint  and  wither  away  like  a  cut  flower.  And 
on  those  days  the  thought  of  the  wind  and 

27 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  thought  of  human  life  came  very  near 
together  in  my  mind.  Our  noisy  years  did 
indeed  seem  moments  in  the  being  of  the 
eternal  silence:  and  the  wind,  in  the  face  of 
that  great  field  of  stationary  blue,  was  as  the 
wind  of  a  butterfly's  wing.  The  placidity  of 
the  sea  was  a  thing  likewise  to  be  remem- 
bered. Shelley  speaks  of  the  sea  as  "hun- 
gering for  calm,"  and  in  this  place  one 
learned  to  understand  the  phrase.  Looking 
down  into  these  green  waters  from  the  bro- 
ken edge  of  the  rock,  or  swimming  leisurely 
in  the  sunshine,  it  seemed  to  me  that  they 
were  enjoying  their  own  tranquillity;  and 
when  now  and  again  it  was  disturbed  by  a 
wind  ripple  on  the  surface,  or  the  quick 
black  passage  of  a  fish  far  below,  they  set- 
tled back  again  (one  could  fancy)  with  re- 
lief. 

On  shore  too,  in  the  little  nook  of  shelter, 
everything  was  so  subdued  and  still  that  the 
least  particular  struck  in  me  a  pleasurable 
surprise.  The  desultory  crackling  of  the 
whin-pods  in  the  afternoon  sun  usurped  the 
ear.  The  hot,  sweet  breath  of  the  bank,  that 
had  been  saturated  all  day  long  with  sun- 
28 


UNPLEASANT  PLACES 
shine,  and  now  exhaled  it  into  my  face,  was 
like  the  breath  of  a  fellow-creature.  I  re- 
member that  1  was  haunted  by  two  lines  of 
French  verse;  in  some  dumb  way  they 
seemed  to  fit  my  surroundings  and  give  ex- 
pression to  the  contentment  that  was  in  me, 
and  1  kept  repeating  to  myself — 

"Mon  coeur  est  un  luth  suspendu, 
Sitot  qu'on  le  touche,  il  resonne." 

I  can  give  no  reason  why  these  lines  came 
to  me  at  this  time;  and  for  that  very  cause 
I  repeat  them  here.  For  all  1  know,  they  may 
serve  to  complete  the  impression  in  the  mind 
of  the  reader,  as  they  were  certainly  a  part 
of  it  for  me. 

And  this  happened  to  me  in  the  place  of 
all  others  where  1  liked  least  to  stay.  When 
I  think  of  it  I  grow  ashamed  of  my  own  in- 
gratitude. "Out  of  the  strong  came  forth 
sweetness."  There,  in  the  bleak  and  gusty 
North,  I  received,  perhaps,  my  strongest  im- 
pression of  peace.  1  saw  the  sea  to  be  great 
and  calm ;  and  the  earth,  in  that  little  corner, 
was  all  alive  and  friendly  to  me.  So,  wher- 
ever a  man  is,  he  will  find  something  to 
please  and  pacify  him :  in  the  town  he  will 

»9 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

meet  pleasant  faces  of  men  and  women,  and 
see  beautiful  flowers  at  a  window,  or  hear  a 
cage-bird  singing  at  the  corner  of  the  gloom- 
iest street;  and  for  the  country,  there  is  no 
country  without  some  amenity  —  let  him 
only  look  for  it  in  the  right  spirit,  and  he  will 
surely  find. 


30 


Ill 

AN  AUTUMN  EFFECT 
1873 

' '  Nous  ne  decri vons  jamais  mieux  la  nature  que  lorsque 
nous  nous  efforfons  d'exprimer  sobrement  et  simplement 
rimpression  que  nous  en  avons  ref ue. " —  M.  Andre  Theu- 
RiET,  "  L'Automne  dans  les  bois,"  T{evue  des  'Deux 
CMondes,  istOift.  1874,  p.  562.' 

"yi^^"^^^  COUNTRY  rapidly  passed  through 
r/VA^  under  favourable  auspices  may  leave 
^^^^  upon  us  a  unity  of  impression  that 
would  only  be  disturbed  and  dissipated  if  we 
stayed  longer.  Clear  vision  goes  with  the 
quick  foot.  Things  fall  for  us  into  a  sort  of 

'  I  had  nearly  finished  the  transcription  of  the  following 
pages,  when  i  saw  on  a  friend's  table  the  number  contain- 
ing the  piece  from  which  this  sentence  is  extracted,  and, 
struck  with  a  similarity  of  title,  took  it  home  with  me 
and  read  it  with  indescribable  satisfaition.  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  more  envy  M.  Theuriet  the  pleasure  of  having 
written  this  delightful  article,  or  the  reader  the  pleasure, 
which  1  hope  he  has  still  before  him,  of  reading  it  once 
and  again,  and  lingering  over  the  passages  that  please 
him  most. 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 
natural  perspedive  when  we  see  them  for  a 
moment  in  going  by;  we  generalise  boldly 
and  simply,  and  are  gone  before  the  sun  is 
overcast,  before  the  rain  falls,  before  the  sea- 
son can  steal  like  a  dial-hand  from  his  figure, 
before  the  lights  and  shadows,  shifting 
round  towards  nightfall,  can  show  us  the 
other  side  of  things,  and  belie  what  they 
showed  us  in  the  morning.  We  expose  our 
mind  to  the  landscape  (as  we  would  expose 
the  prepared  plate  in  the  camera)  for  the  mo- 
ment only  during  which  the  efifeft  endures; 
and  we  are  away  before  the  effect  can 
change.  Hence  we  shall  have  in  our  memo- 
ries a  long  scroll  of  continuous  wayside  pic- 
tures, all  imbued  already  with  the  prevailing 
sentiment  of  the  season,  the  weather,  and 
the  landscape,  and  certain  to  be  unified  more 
and  more,  as  time  goes  on,  by  the  uncon- 
scious processes  of  thought.  So  that  we  who 
have  only  looked  at  a  country  over  our  shoul- 
der, so  to  speak,  as  we  went  by,  will  have  a 
conception  of  it  far  more  memorable  and  ar- 
ticulate than  a  man  who  has  lived  there  all 
his  life  from  a  child  upwards,  and  had  his 
impression  of  to-day  modified  by  that  of  to- 
32 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

morrow,  and  belied  by  that  of  the  day  after, 
till  at  length  the  stable  characteristics  of  the 
country  are  all  blotted  out  from  him  behind 
the  confusion  of  variable  effeft. 

I  began  my  little  pilgrimage  in  the  most 
enviable  of  all  humours:  that  in  which  a  per- 
son, with  asufficiency  of  money  anda  knap- 
sack, turns  his  back  on  a  town  and  walks 
forward  into  a  country  of  which  he  knows 
only  by  the  vague  report  of  others.  Such  an 
one  has  not  surrendered  his  will  and  con- 
traded  for  the  next  hundred  miles,  like  a 
man  on  a  railway.  He  may  change  his  mind 
at  every  finger-post,  and,  where  ways  meet, 
follow  vague  preferences  freely  and  go  the 
low  road  or  the  high,  choose  the  shadow  or 
the  sunshine,  suffer  himself  to  be  tempted  by 
the  lane  that  turns  immediately  into  the 
woods,  or  the  broad  road  that  lies  open  be- 
fore him  into  the  distance,  and  shows  him 
the  fiir-off  spires  of  some  city,  or  a  range  of 
mountain-tops,  or  a  rim  of  sea,  perhaps, 
along  a  low  horizon.  In  short,  he  may  gratify 
his  every  whim  and  fancy,  without  a  pang 
of  reproving  conscience,  or  the  least  jostle  to 
his  self-respe6t.  It  is  true,  however,  that  most 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

men  do  not  possess  the  faculty  of  free  adion, 
the  priceless  gift  of  being  able  to  live  for  the 
moment  only;  and  as  they  begin  to  go  for- 
ward on  their  journey,  they  will  find  that 
they  have  made  for  themselves  new  fetters. 
Slight  projeds  they  may  have  entertained 
for  a  moment,  half  in  jest,  become  iron  laws 
to  them,  they  know  not  why.  They  will  be 
led  by  the  nose  by  these  vague  reports  of 
which  1  spoke  above;  and  the  mere  fadlthat 
their  informant  mentioned  one  village  and 
not  another  will  compel  their  footsteps  with 
inexplicable  power.  And  yet  a  little  while, 
yet  a  few  days  of  this  fictitious  liberty,  and 
they  will  begin  to  hear  imperious  voices  call- 
ing on  them  to  return;  and  some  passion, 
some  duty,  some  worthy  or  unworthy  ex- 
pectation, will  set  its  hand  upon  their  shoul- 
der and  lead  them  back  into  the  old  paths. 
Once  and  again  we  have  all  made  the  experi- 
ment. We  know  the  end  of  it  right  well.  And 
yet  if  we  make  it  for  the  hundredth  time  to- 
morrow, it  will  have  the  same  charm  as  ever ; 
our  heart  will  beat  and  our  eyes  will  be 
bright,  as  we  leave  the  town  behind  us,  and 
we  shall  feel  once  again  (as  we  have  felt  so 
34 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 
often  before)  that  we  are  cutting  ourselves 
loose  for  ever  from  our  whole  past  life,  with 
all  its  sins  and  follies  and  circumscriptions, 
and  go  forward  as  a  new  creature  into  a  new 
world. 

It  was  well,  perhaps,  that  I  had  this  first 
enthusiasm  to  encourage  me  up  the  long  hill 
above  High  Wycombe;  for  the  day  was  a 
bad  day  for  walking  at  best,  and  now  began 
to  draw  towards  afternoon,  dull,  heavy,  and 
lifeless.  A  pall  of  grey  cloud  covered  the  sky, 
and  its  colour  readed  on  the  colour  of  the 
landscape.  Near  at  hand,  indeed,  the  hedge- 
row trees  were  still  fairly  green,  shot 
through  with  bright  autumnal  yellows, 
bright  as  sunshine.  But  a  little  way  off,  the 
solid  bricks  of  woodland  that  lay  squarely 
on  slope  and  hill-top  were  not  green,  but 
russet  and  grey,  and  ever  less  russet  and 
more  grey  as  they  drew  off  into  the  distance. 
As  they  drew  off  into  the  distance,  also,  the 
woods  seemed  to  mass  themselves  together, 
and  lie  thin  and  straight,  like  clouds,  upon 
the  limit  of  one's  view.  Not  that  this  mass- 
ing was  complete,  or  gave  the  idea  of  any 
extent  of  forest,  for  every  here  and  there  the 

35 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

trees  would  break  up  and  go  down  into  a 
valley  in  open  order,  or  stand  in  long  Indian 
file  along  the  horizon,  tree  after  tree  relieved, 
foolishly  enough,  against  the  sky.  1  say  fool- 
ishly enough,  although  1  have  seen  the  efTe(ft 
employed  cleverly  in  art,  and  such  long  line 
of  single  trees  thrown  out  against  the  cus- 
tomary sunset  of  a  Japanese  pidure  with  a 
certain  fantastic  efTeft  that  was  not  to  be  de- 
spised; but  this  was  over  water  and  level 
land,  where  it  did  not  jar,  as  here,  with  the 
soft  contour  of  hills  and  valleys.  The  whole 
scene  had  an  indefinable  look  of  being 
painted,  the  colour  was  so  abstract  and  cor- 
real, and  there  was  something  so  sketchy 
and  merely  impressional  about  these  distant 
single  trees  on  the  horizon  that  one  was 
forced  to  think  of  it  all  as  of  a  clever  French 
landscape.  For  it  is  rather  in  nature  that  we 
see  resemblance  to  art,  than  in  art  to  nature; 
and  we  say  a  hundred  times,  "How  like  a 
pidure!"  for  once  that  we  say,  "How  like 
the  truth!  "  The  forms  in  which  we  learn  to 
think  of  landscape  are  forms  that  we  have 
got  from  painted  canvas.  Any  man  can  see 
and  understand  a  pidure;  it  is  reserved  for 
36 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 
the  few  to  separate  anything  out  of  the  con- 
fusion of  nature,  and  see  that  distindly  and 
with  intelligence. 

The  sun  came  out  before  I  had  been  long 
on  my  way;  and  as  I  had  got  by  that  time 
to  the  top  of  the  ascent,  and  was  now  tread- 
ing a  labyrinth  of  confined  by-roads,  my 
whole  view  brightened  considerably  in  col- 
our, for  it  was  the  distance  only  that  was 
grey  and  cold,  and  the  distance  I  could  see 
no  longer.  Overhead  there  was  a  wonderful 
carolling  of  larks  which  seemed  to  follow  me 
as  1  went.  Indeed,  during  all  the  time  I  was 
in  that  country  the  larks  did  not  desert  me. 
The  air  was  alive  with  them  from  High  Wy- 
combe to  Tring;  and  as,  day  after  day,  their 
' '  shrill  delight "  fell  upon  me  out  of  the  va- 
cant sky,  they  began  to  take  such  a  prom- 
inence over  other  conditions,  and  form  so 
integral  a  part  of  my  conception  of  the  coun- 
try, that  I  could  have  baptised  it  "The  Coun- 
try of  Larks."  This,  of  course,  might  just  as 
well  have  been  in  early  spring;  but  every- 
thing else  was  deeply  imbued  with  the  senti- 
ment of  the  later  year.  There  was  no  stir  of 
inseds  in  the  grass.  The  sunshine  was  more 

37 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

golden,  and  gave  less  heat  than  summer  sun- 
shine; and  the  shadows  under  the  hedge 
were  somewhat  blue  and  misty.  It  was  only 
in  autumn  that  you  could  have  seen  the  min- 
gled green  and  yellow  of  the  elm  foliage,  and 
the  fallen  leaves  that  lay  about  the  road,  and 
covered  the  surface  of  wayside  pools  so 
thickly  that  the  sun  was  refleded  only  here 
and  there  from  little  joints  and  pinholes  in 
that  brown  coat  of  proof;  or  that  your  ear 
would  have  been  troubled,  as  you  went  for- 
ward, by  the  occasional  report  of  fowling- 
pieces  from  all  diredions  and  all  degrees  of 
distance. 

For  a  long  time  this  dropping  fire  was  the 
one  sign  of  human  activity  that  came  to  dis- 
turb me  as  1  walked.  The  lanes  were  pro- 
foundly still.  They  would  have  been  sad  but 
for  the  sunshine  and  the  singing  of  the  larks. 
And  as  it  was,  there  came  over  me  at  times 
a  feeling  of  isolation  that  was  not  disagreea- 
ble, and  yet  was  enough  to  make  me  quicken 
my  steps  eagerly  when  1  saw  some  one  be- 
fore me  on  the  road.  This  fellow-voyager 
proved  to  be  no  less  a  person  than  the  parish 
constable.  It  had  occurred  to  me  that  in  a 
38 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

distrid  which  was  so  little  populous  and  so 
well  wooded,  a  criminal  of  any  intelligence 
might  play  hide-and-seek  with  the  authori- 
ties for  months;  and  this  idea  was  strength- 
ened by  the  asped  of  the  portly  constabk 
as  he  walked  by  my  side  with  deliberate  dig- 
nity and  turned-out  toes.  But  a  few  minutes' 
converse  set  my  heart  at  rest.  These  rural 
criminals  are  very  tame  birds,  it  appeared. 
If  my  informant  did  not  immediately  lay  his 
hand  on  an  offender,   he  was  content  to 
wait;   some  evening    after  nightfall   there 
would  come  a  tap  at  his  door,  and  the  out- 
law, weary  of  outlawry,  would  give  himself 
quietly  up  to  undergo  sentence,  and  resume 
his  position  in  the  life  of  the  country-side. 
Married  men  caused  him  no  disquietude 
whatever;  he  had  them  fast  by  the  foot. 
Sooner  or  later  they  would  come  back  to 
see  their  wives,  a  peeping  neighbour  would 
pass  the  word,  and  my  portly  constable 
would  walk  quietly  over  and  take  the  bird 
sitting.  And  if  there  were  a  few  who  had  no 
particular  ties  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  pre- 
ferred to  shift  into  another  county  when  they 
fell  into  trouble,  their  departure  moved  the 

39 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

placid  constable  in  no  degree.  He  was  of 
Dogberry's  opinion ;  and  if  a  man  would  not 
stand  in  the  Prince's  name,  he  took  no  note 
of  him,  but  let  him  go,  and  thanked  God  he 
was  rid  of  a  knave.  And  surely  the  crime 
and  the  law  were  in  admirable  keeping ;  rus- 
tic constable  was  well  met  with  rustic  of- 
fender. The  officer  sitting  at  home  over  a  bit 
of  fire  until  the  criminal  came  to  visit  him, 
and  the  criminal  coming  —  it  was  a  fair 
match.  One  felt  as  if  this  must  have  been  the 
order  in  that  delightful  seaboard  Bohemia 
where  Florizel  and  Perdita  courted  in  such 
sweet  accents,  and  the  Puritan  sang  psalms 
to  hornpipes,  and  the  four-and-twenty  shear- 
ers danced  with  nosegays  in  their  bosoms, 
and  chanted  their  three  songs  apiece  at  the 
old  shepherd's  festival;  and  one  could  not 
help  piduring  to  oneself  what  havoc  among 
good  people's  purses,  and  tribulation  for  be- 
nignant constables,  might  be  worked  here 
by  the  arrival,  over  stile  and  footpath,  of  a 
new  Autolycus. 

Bidding  good-morning  to  my  fellow-trav- 
eller, 1  left  the  road  and  struck  across  coun- 
try, it  was  rather  a  revelation  to  pass  from 
40 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

between  the  hedgerows  and  find  quite  a 
bustle  on  the  other  side,  a  great  coming  and 
goingofschool-children  upon  by-paths,  and, 
in  every  second  field,  lusty  horses  and  stout 
country-folk  a-ploughing.  The  way  I  fol- 
lowed took  me  through  many  fields  thus  oc- 
cupied, and  through  many  strips  of  planta- 
tion, and  then  over  a  little  space  of  smooth 
turf,  very  pleasant  to  the  feet,  set  with  tall 
fir-trees  and  clamorous  with  rooks  making 
ready  for  the  winter,  and  so  back  again  into 
the  quiet  road.  I  was  now  not  far  from  the 
end  of  my  day's  journey.  A  few  hundred 
yards  farther,  and,  passing  through  a  gap  in 
the  hedge,  I  began  to  go  down  hill  through 
a  pretty  extensive  trad  of  young  beeches. 
I  was  soon  in  shadow  myself,  but  the  after- 
noon sun  still  coloured  the  upmost  boughs 
of  the  wood,  and  made  a  fire  over  my  head 
in  the  autumnal  foliage.  A  little  faint  vapour 
lay  among  the  slim  tree-stems  in  the  bottom 
of  the  hollow;  and  from  farther  up  I  heard 
from  time  to  time  an  outburst  of  gross  laugh- 
ter, as  though  clowns  were  making  merry 
in  the  bush.  There  was  something  about 
the  atmosphere  that  brought  all  sights  and 

41 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

sounds  home  to  one  with  a  singular  purity, 
so  that  I  felt  as  if  my  senses  had  been  washed 
with  water.  After  I  had  crossed  the  little  zone 
of  mist,  the  path  began  to  remount  the  hill; 
and  just  as  1,  mounting  along  with  it,  had 
got  back  again,  from  the  head  downwards, 
into  the  thin  golden  sunshine,  I  saw  in  front 
of  me  a  donkey  tied  to  a  tree.  Now,  I  have 
a  certain  liking  for  donkeys,  principally,  I 
believe,  because  of  the  delightful  things  that 
Sterne  has  written  of  them.  But  this  was  not 
after  the  pattern  of  the  ass  at  Lyons,  He  was 
of  a  white  colour,  that  seemed  to  fit  him 
rather  for  rare  festal  occasions  than  for  con- 
stant drudgery.  Besides,  he  was  very  small, 
and  of  the  daintiest  proportions  you  can  im- 
agine in  a  donkey.  And  so,  sure  enough, 
you  had  only  to  look  at  him  to  see  he  had 
never  worked.  There  was  something  too 
roguish  and  wanton  in  his  face,  a  look  too 
like  that  of  a  schoolboy  or  a  street  Arab,  to 
have  survived  much  cudgelling.  It  was  plain 
that  these  feet  had  kicked  off  sportive  chil- 
dren oftener  than  they  had  plodded  with  a 
freight  through  miry  lanes.  He  was  alto- 
gether a  fine-weather,  holiday  sort  of  don- 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

key;  and  though  he  was  just  then  somewhat 
solemnised  and  rueful,  he  still  gave  proof  of 
the  levity  of  his  disposition  by  impudently 
wagging  his  ears  at  me  as  I  drew  near.  I  say 
he  was  somewhat  solemnised  just  then ;  for, 
with  the  admirable  instind  of  all  men  and 
animals  under  restraint,  he  had  so  wound 
and  wound  the  halter  about  the  tree  that  he 
could  go  neither  back  nor  forwards,  nor  so 
much  as  put  down  his  head  to  browse. There 
he  stood,  poor  rogue,  part  puzzled,  part 
angry,  part,  1  believe,  amused.  He  had  not 
given  up  hope,  and  dully  revolved  the  prob- 
lem in  his  head,  giving  ever  and  again  an- 
other jerk  at  the  few  inches  of  free  rope  that 
still  remained  unwound.  A  humorous  sort  of 
sympathy  for  the  creature  took  hold  upon 
me.  1  went  up,  and,  not  without  some  trou- 
ble on  my  part,  and  much  distrust  and  re- 
sistance on  the  part  of  Neddy,  got  him  forced 
backwards  until  the  whole  length  of  the 
halter  was  set  loose,  and  he  was  once  more 
as  free  a  donkey  as  I  dared  to  make  him.  I 
was  pleased  (as  people  are)  with  this  friendly 
adion  to  a  fellow-creature  in  tribulation,  and 
glanced  back  over  my  shoulder  to  see  how 

43 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

he  was  profiting  by  his  freedom.  The  brute 
was  looking  after  me;  and  no  sooner  did  he 
catch  my  eye  than  he  put  up  his  long  white 
face  into  the  air,  pulled  an  impudent  mouth 
at  me,  and  began  to  bray  derisively.  If  ever 
any  one  person  made  a  grimace  at  another, 
that  donkey  made  a  grimace  at  me.  The 
hardened  ingratitude  of  his  behaviour,  and 
the  impertinence  that  inspired  his  whole 
face  as  he  curled  up  his  lip,  and  showed  his 
teeth,  and  began  to  bray,  so  tickled  me,  and 
was  so  much  in  keeping  with  what  1  had 
imagined  to  myself  about  his  charader,  that 
I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  to  be  angry, 
and  burst  into  a  peal  of  hearty  laughter.  This 
seemed  to  strike  the  ass  as  a  repartee,  so  he 
brayed  at  me  again  by  way  of  rejoinder;  and 
we  went  on  for  a  while,  braying  and  laugh- 
ing, until  1  began  to  grow  a-weary  of  it,  and, 
shouting  a  derisive  farewell,  turned  to  pur- 
sue my  way.  In  so  doing — ^it  was  like  go- 
ing suddenly  into  cold  water — I  found  my- 
self face  to  face  with  a  prim  little  old  maid. 
She  was  all  in  a  flutter,  the  poor  old  dear  ! 
She  had  concluded  beyond  question  that  this 
must  be  a  lunatic  who  stood  laughing  aloud 

44 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

at  a  white  donkey  in  the  placid  beech-woods. 
I  was  sure,  by  her  face,  that  she  had  already 
recommended  her  spirit  most  religiously  to 
Heaven,  and  prepared  herself  for  the  worst. 
And  so,  to  reassure  her,  1  uncovered  and  be- 
sought her,  after  a  very  staid  fashion,  to  put 
me  on  my  way  to  Great  Missenden.  Her 
voice  trembled  a  little,  to  be  sure,  but  1  think 
her  mind  was  set  at  rest;  and  she  told  me, 
very  explicitly,  to  follow  the  path  until  I 
came  to  the  end  of  the  wood,  and  then  I 
should  see  the  village  below  me  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  valley.  And,  with  mutual  courte- 
sies, the  little  old  maid  and  I  went  on  our 
respective  ways. 

Nor  had  she  misled  me.  Great  Missenden 
was  close  at  hand,  as  she  had  said,  in  the 
trough  of  a  gentle  valley,  with  many  great 
elms  about  it.  The  smoke  from  its  chimneys 
went  up  pleasantly  in  the  afternoon  sun- 
shine. The  sleepy  hum  of  a  threshing-ma- 
chine filled  the  neighbouring  fields  and  hung 
about  the  quaint  street  corners.  A  little 
above,  the  church  sits  well  back  on  its 
haunches  against  the  hill-side  —  an  attitude 
for  a  church,  you  know,  that  mnkes  it  look 

45 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

as  if  it  could  be  ever  so  much  higher  if  it 
liked;  and  the  trees  grew  about  it  thickly,  so 
as  to  make  a  density  of  shade  in  the  church- 
yard. A  very  quiet  place  it  looks;  and  yet  1 
saw  many  boards  and  posters  about  threat- 
ening dire  punishment  against  those  who 
broke  the  church  windows  or  defaced  the 
precind,  and  offering  rewards  for  the  appre- 
hension of  those  who  had  done  the  like  al- 
ready. It  was  fair  day  in  Great  Missenden. 
There  were  three  stalls  set  up,  sub  jove,  for 
the  sale  of  pastry  and  cheap  toys ;  and  a  great 
number  of  holiday  children  thronged  about 
the  stalls  and  noisily  invaded  every  corner  of 
the  straggling  village.  They  came  round  me 
by  coveys,  blowing  simultaneously  upon 
penny  trumpets  as  though  they  imagined  I 
should  fall  to  pieces  like  the  battlements  of 
Jericho.  I  noticed  one  among  them  who  could 
make  a  wheel  of  himself  like  a  London  boy, 
and  seemingly  enjoyed  a  grave  pre-eminence 
upon  the  strength  of  the  accomplishment. 
By-and-by,  however,  the  trumpets  began  to 
weary  me,  and  I  went  indoors,  leaving  the 
fair,  1  fancy,  at  its  height. 

Night  had  fallen  before  I  ventured  forth 
46 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

again.  It  was  pitch-dark  in  the  village  street, 
and  the  darkness  seemed  only  the  greater 
for  a  light  here  and  there  in  an  uncurtained 
window  or  from  an  open  door.  Into  one  such 
window  I  was  rude  enough  to  peep,  and 
saw  within  a  charming  genre  pi6lure.  In  a 
room,  all  white  wainscot  and  crimson  wall- 
paper, a  perfect  gem  of  colour  after  the  black, 
empty  darkness  inwhichi  had  been  groping, 
a  pretty  girl  was  telling  a  story,  as  well  as  I 
could  make  out,  to  an  attentive  child  upon 
her  knee,  while  an  old  woman  sat  placidly 
dozing  over  the  fire.  You  may  be  sure  I  was 
not  behindhand  with  a  story  for  myself — a 
good  old  story  after  the  manner  of  G.  P.  R. 
James  and  the  village  melodramas,  with  a 
wicked  squire,  and  poachers,  and  an  attor- 
ney, and  a  virtuous  young  man  with  a  ge- 
nius for  mechanics,  who  should  love,  and 
proted,  and  ultimately  marry  the  girl  in  the 
crimson  room.  Baudelaire  has  a  few  dainty 
sentences  on  the  fancies  that  we  are  inspired 
with  when  we  look  through  a  window  into 
other  people's  lives;  and  I  think  Dickens  has 
somewhere  enlarged  on  the  same  text.  The 
subjed,  at  least,  is  one  that  I  am  seldom 

47 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 
weary  of  entertaining.  1  remember,  night 
after  night,  at  Brussels,  watching  a  good 
family  sup  together,  make  merry,  and  retire 
to  rest;  and  night  after  night  1  waited  to  see 
the  candles  lit,  and  the  salad  made,  and  the 
last  salutations  dutifully  exchanged,  without 
any  abatement  of  interest.  Night  after  night 
I  found  the  scene  rivet  my  attention  and  keep 
me  awake  in  bed  with  all  manner  of  quaint 
imaginations.  Much  of  the  pleasure  of  the 
Arabian  Nightshmges  upon  this  Asmodean 
interest;  and  we  are  not  weary  of  lifting 
other  people's  roofs,  and  going  about  behind 
the  scenes  of  life  with  the  Caliph  and  the 
serviceable  Giaffar.  It  is  a  salutary  exercise, 
besides;  it  is  salutary  to  get  out  of  ourselves 
and  see  people  living  together  in  perfect  un- 
consciousness of  our  existence,  as  they  will 
live  when  we  are  gone.  If  to-morrow  the 
blow  falls,  and  the  worst  of  our  ill  fears  is 
realised,  the  girl  will  none  the  less  tell  stories 
to  the  child  on  her  lap  in  the  cottage  at  Great 
Missenden,  nor  the  good  Belgians  light  their 
candle,  and  mix  their  salad,  and  go  orderly 

to  bed. 

The  next  morning  was  sunny  overhead 
48 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

and  damp  underfoot,  with  a  thrill  in  the  air 
like  a  reminiscence  of  frost.  I  went  up  into 
the  sloping  garden  behind  the  inn  and 
smoked  a  pipe  pleasantly  enough,  to  the 
tune  of  my  landlady's  lamentations  oversun- 
dry  cabbages  and  cauliflowers  that  had  been 
spoiled  by  caterpillars.  She  had  been  so  much 
pleased  in  the  summer-time,  she  said,  to  see 
the  garden  all  hovered  over  by  white  butter- 
flies. And  now,  look  at  the  end  of  it!  She 
could  nowise  reconcile  this  with  her  moral 
sense.  And,  indeed,  unless  these  butterflies 
are  created  with  a  side-look  to  the  composi- 
tion of  improving  apologues,  it  is  not  alto- 
gether easy,  even  for  people  who  have  read 
Hegel  and  Dr.  M'Cosh,  to  decide  intelligibly 
upon  the  issue  raised.  Then  I  fell  into  along 
and  abstruse  calculation  with  my  landlord; 
having  for  objed  to  compare  the  distance 
driven  by  him  during  eight  years'  service  on 
the  box  of  the  Wendover  coach  with  the 
girthof  theround  worlditself.  Wetackledthe 
question  most  conscientiously,  made  all  nec- 
essary allowance  for  Sundays  and  leap-years, 
and  were  just  coming  to  a  triumphant  con- 
clusion of  our  labours  when  we  were  stayed 

49 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

by  a  small  lacuna  in  my  information.  I  did 
not  know  the  circumference  of  the  earth. 
The  landlord  knew  it,  to  be  sure  —  plainly 
he  had  made  the  same  calculation  twice  and 
once  before,  — but  he  wanted  confidence  in 
his  own  figures,  and  from  the  moment  I 
showed  myself  so  poor  a  second  seemed  to 
lose  all  interest  in  the  result. 

Wendover  (which  was  my  next  stage) 
lies  in  the  samevalley  with  Great  Missenden, 
but  at  the  foot  of  it,  where  the  hills  trend  off 
on  either  hand  like  a  coast-line,  and  a  great 
hemisphere  of  plain  lies,  like  a  sea,  before 
one,  I  went  up  a  chalky  road,  until  I  had  a 
good  outlook  over  the  place.  The  vale,  as  it 
opened  out  into  the  plain,  was  shallow,  and 
a  little  bare,  perhaps,  but  full  of  graceful  con- 
volutions. From  the  level  to  which  1  have 
now  attained  the  fields  were  exposed  before 
me  like  a  map,  and  I  could  see  all  that  bustle 
of  autumn  field-work  which  had  been  hid 
from  me  yesterday  behind  the  hedgerows, 
or  shown  to  me  only  for  a  moment  as  1  fol- 
lowed the  footpath.  Wendover  lay  well 
down  in  the  midst,  with  mountains  of  foliage 
about  it.  The  great  plain  stretched  away  to 
50 


AN  AUTUMN  EFFECT 

the  northward,  variegated  near  at  hand  with 
the  quaint  pattern  of  the  fields,  but  growing 
ever  more  and  more  indistinct,  until  it  be- 
came a  mere  hurly-burly  of  trees  and  bright 
crescents  of  river,  and  snatches  of  slanting 
road,  and  finally  melted  into  the  ambiguous 
cloud-land  over  the  horizon.  The  sky  was 
an  opal-grey,  touched  here  and  there  with 
blue,  and  with  certain  faint  russets  that 
looked  as  if  they  were  refledions  of  the 
colour  of  the  autumnal  woods  below.  I 
could  hear  the  ploughmen  shouting  to  their 
horses,  the  uninterrupted  carol  of  larks  in- 
numerable overhead,  and,  from  a  field  where 
the  shepherd  was  marshalling  his  flock,  a 
sweet  tumultuous  tinkle  of  sheep-bells.  All 
these  noises  came  to  me  very  thin  and  dis- 
tinft  in  the  clear  air.  There  was  a  wonderful 
sentiment  of  distance  and  atmosphere  about 
the  day  and  the  place. 

I  mounted  the  hill  yet  farther  by  a  rough 
staircase  of  chalky  footholds  cut  in  the  turf. 
The  hills  about  Wendover  and,  as  far  as  I 
could  see,  all  the  hills  in  Buckinghamshire, 
wear  a  sort  of  hood  of  beech  plantation ;  but 
in  this  particular  case  the  hood  had  been  suf- 

5' 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

fered  to  extend  itself  into  something  more 
like  a  cloak,  and  hung  down  about  the 
shoulders  of  the  hill  in  wide  folds,  instead  of 
lying  flatly  along  the  summit.  The  trees 
grew  so  close,  and  their  boughs  were  so 
matted  together,  that  the  whole  wood 
looked  as  dense  as  a  bush  of  heather.  The 
prevailing  colour  was  a  dull,  smouldering 
red,  touched  here  and  there  with  vivid  yel- 
low. But  the  autumn  hadscarce  advanced  be- 
yond the  outworks;  it  was  still  almost  sum- 
mer in  the  heart  of  the  wood ;  and  as  soon  as 
1  had  scrambled  through  the  hedge,  I  found 
myself  in  a  dim  green  forest  atmosphere  un- 
der eaves  of  virgin  foliage.  In  places  where 
the  wood  had  itself  for  a  background  and 
the  trees  were  massed  together  thickly,  the 
colour  became  intensified  and  almost  gem- 
like:  a  perfed  fire  of  green,  that  seemed  none 
the  less  green  for  a  few  specks  of  autumn 
gold.  None  of  the  trees  were  of  any  con- 
siderable age  or  stature;  but  they  grew  well 
together,  I  have  said;  and  as  the  road  turned 
and  wound  among  them,  they  fell  into 
pleasant  groupings  and  broke  the  light  up 
pleasantly.  Sometimes  there  would  be  acol- 
52 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

onnade  of  slim,  straight  tree-stems  with  the 
light  running  down  them  as  down  the  shafts 
of  pillars,  that  looked  as  if  it  ought  to  lead  to 
something,  and  led  only  to  a  corner  of  som- 
bre and  intricate  jungle.  Sometimes  a  spray 
of  delicate  foliage  would  be  thrown  out  flat, 
the  light  lying  flatly  along  the  top  of  it,  so 
that  against  a  dark  background  it  seemed 
almost  luminous.  There  was  a  great  hush 
over  the  thicket  (for,  indeed,  it  was  more  of 
a  thicket  than  a  wood) ;  and  the  vague  ru- 
mours that  went  among  the  tree-tops,  and 
the  occasional  rustling  of  big  birds  or  hares 
among  the  undergrowth,  had  in  them  a  note 
of  almost  treacherous  stealthiness,  that  put 
the  imagination  on  its  guard  and  made  me 
walk  warily  on  the  russet  carpeting  of  last 
year's  leaves.  The  spirit  of  the  place  seemed 
to  be  all  attention;  the  wood  listened  as  I 
went,  and  held  its  breath  to  number  my  foot- 
falls. One  could  not  help  feeling  that  there 
ought  to  be  some  reason  for  this  stillness; 
whether,  as  the  bright  old  legend  goes.  Pan 
lay  somewhere  near  in  siesta,  or  whether, 
perhaps,  the  heaven  was  meditating  rain, 
and  the  first  drops  would  soon  come  patter- 

53 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ing  through  the  leaves.  It  was  not  unpleas- 
ant, in  such  an  humour,  to  catch  sight,  ever 
and  anon,  of  large  spaces  of  the  open  plain. 
This  happened  only  where  the  path  lay 
much  upon  the  slope,  and  there  was  a  flaw 
in  the  solid  leafy  thatch  of  the  wood  at  some 
distance  below  the  level  at  which  1  chanced 
myself  to  be  walking;  then,  indeed,  little 
scraps  of  foreshortened  distance,  miniature 
fields,  and  Lilliputian  houses  and  hedgerow 
trees  would  appear  for  a  moment  in  the  aper- 
ture, and  grow  larger  and  smaller,  and 
change  and  melt  one  into  another,  as  1  con- 
tinued to  go  forward,  and  so  shift  my  point 
of  view. 

For  ten  minutes,  perhaps,  I  had  heard  from 
somewhere  before  me  in  the  wood  a  strange, 
continuous  noise,  as  of  clucking,  cooing, 
and  gobbling,  now  and  again  interrupted  by 
a  harsh  scream.  As  1  advanced  towards  this 
noise,  it  began  to  grow  lighter  about  me, 
and  1  caught  sight,  through  the  trees,  of 
sundry  gables  and  enclosure  walls,  and 
something  like  the  tops  of  a  rickyard.  And 
sure  enough,  a  rickyard  it  proved  to  be,  and 
a  neat  little  farm-steading,  with  the  beech- 
54 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

woods  growing  almost  to  the  door  of  it.  Just 
before  me,  however,  as  I  came  up  the  path, 
the  trees  drew  back  and  let  in  a  wide  flood 
of  dayhght  on  to  a  circular  lawn.  It  was  here 
that  the  noises  had  their  origin.  More  than  a 
score  of  peacocks  (there  are  altogether  thirty 
at  the  farm),  a  proper  contingent  of  peahens, 
and  a  great  multitude  that  I  could  not  num- 
ber of  more  ordinary  barn-door  fowls,  were 
all  feeding  together  on  this  little  open  lawn 
among  the  beeches.  They  fed  in  a  dense 
crowd,  which  swayed  to  and  fro,  and  came 
hither  and  thither  as  by  a  sort  of  tide,  and  of 
which  the  surface  was  agitated  like  the  sur- 
face of  a  sea  as  each  bird  guzzled  his  head 
along  the  ground  after  the  scattered  corn. 
The  clucking,  cooing  noise  that  had  led  me 
thither  was  formed  by  the  blending  together 
of  countless  expressions  of  individual  con- 
tentment into  one  colleftive  expression  of 
contentment,  or  general  grace  during  meat. 
Every  now  and  again  a  big  peacock  would 
separate  himself  from  the  mob  and  take  a 
stately  turn  or  two  about  the  lawn,  or  per- 
haps mount  for  a  moment  upon  the  rail,  and 
there  shrilly  publish  to  the  world  his  satis- 

55 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

fadion  with  himself  and  what  he  had  to  eat. 
It  happened,  for  my  sins,  that  none  of  these 
admirable  birds  had  anything  beyond  the 
merest  rudiment  of  a  tail.  Tails,  it  seemed, 
were  out  of  season  just  then.  But  they  had 
their  necks  for  all  that;  and  by  their  necks 
alone  they  do  as  much  surpass  all  the  other 
birds  of  our  grey  climate  as  they  fall  in  qual- 
ity of  song  below  the  blackbird  or  the  lark. 
Surely  the  peacock,  with  its  incomparable 
parade  of  glorious  colour  and  the  scrannel 
voice  of  it  issuing  forth,  as  in  mockery,  from 
its  painted  throat,  must,  like  my  landlady's 
butterflies  at  Great  Missenden,  have  been 
invented  by  some  skilful  fabulist  for  the  con- 
solation and  support  of  homely  virtue:  or 
rather,  perhaps,  by  a  fabulist  not  quite  so 
skilful,  who  made  points  for  the  moment 
without  having  a  studious  enough  eye  to  the 
complete  effect;  for  I  thought  these  melting 
greens  and  blues  so  beautiful  that  afternoon, 
that  I  would  have  given  them  my  vote  just 
then  before  the  sweetest  pipe  in  all  the 
spring  woods.  For  indeed  there  is  no  piece 
of  colour  of  the  same  extent  in  nature,  that 
will  so  flatter  and  satisfy  the  lust  of  a  man's 


AJV  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 
eyes;  and  to  come  upon  so  many  of  them, 
after  these  acres  of  stone-coloured  heavens 
and  russet  woods,  and  grey-brown  plough- 
lands  and  white  roads,  was  like  going  three 
whole  days'  journey  to  the  southward,  or  a 
month  back  into  the  summer. 

I  was  sorry  to  leave  Peacock  Farm — for 
so  the  place  is  called,  after  the  name  of  its 
splendid  pensioners  —  and  go  forwards 
again  in  the  quiet  woods.  It  began  to  grow 
both  damp  and  dusk  under  the  beeches ;  and 
as  the  day  declined  the  colour  faded  out  of  the 
foliage ;  and  shadow,  without  form  and  void, 
took  the  place  of  all  the  fine  tracery  of  leaves 
and  delicate  gradations  of  living  green  that 
had  before  accompanied  my  walk.  I  had 
been  sorry  to  leave  Peacock  Farm,  but  1  was 
not  sorry  to  find  myself  once  more  in  the 
open  road,  under  a  pale  and  somewhat 
troubled-looking  evening  sky,  and  put  my 
best  foot  foremost  for  the  inn  at  Wendover. 

Wendover,  in  itself,  is  a  straggling,  pur- 
poseless sort  of  place.  Everybody  seems  to 
have  had  his  own  opinion  as  to  how  the 
street  should  go;  or  rather,  every  now  and 
then  a  man  seems  to  have  arisen  with  a  new 

57 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

idea  on  the  subjed,  and  led  away  a  little  sed 
of  neighbours  to  join  in  his  heresy.  It  would 
have  somewhat  the  look  of  an  abortive 
watering-place,  such  as  we  may  now  see 
them  here  and  there  along  the  coast,  but  for 
the  age  of  the  houses,  the  comely  quiet  de- 
sign of  some  of  them,  and  the  look  of  long 
habitation,  of  a  life  that  is  settled  and  rooted, 
and  makes  it  worth  while  to  train  flowers 
about  the  windows,  and  otherwise  shape  the 
dwelling  to  the  humour  of  the  inhabitant. 
The  church,  which  might  perhaps  have 
served  as  rallying-point  for  these  loose 
houses,  and  pulled  the  township  into  some- 
thing like  intelligible  unity,  stands  some  dis- 
tance off  among  great  trees;  but  the  inn  (to 
take  the  public  buildings  in  order  of  import- 
ance) is  in  what  I  understand  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal street:  a  pleasant  old  house,  with  bay- 
windows,  and  three  peaked  gables,  and 
many  swallows'  nests  plastered  about  the 
eaves. 

The  interior  of  the  inn  was  answerable  to 

the  outside:  indeed,  1  never  saw  any  room 

much  more  to  be  admired  than  the  low 

wainscoted  parlour  in  which  1  spent  the  re- 

58 


> 
O 
Q 
Z 

UJ 

^ 

_i 

UJ 

u. 

b 
•X. 

z 

o 


Q 

UJ 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

mainder  of  the  evening.  It  was  ashort  oblong 
in  shape,  save  that  the  fireplace  was  built 
across  one  of  the  angles  so  as  to  cut  it  par- 
tially off,  and  the  opposite  angle  was  simi- 
larly truncated  by  a  corner  cupboard.  The 
wainscot  was  white,  and  there  was  a  Turkey 
carpet  on  the  floor,  so  old  that  it  might  have 
been  imported  by  Walter  Shandy  before  he 
retired,  worn  almost  through  in  some  places, 
but  in  others  making  a  good  show  of  blues 
and  oranges,  none  the  less  harmonious  for 
being  somewhatfaded.  The  corner  cupboard 
was  agreeable  in  design ;  and  there  were  just 
the  right  things  upon  the  shelves — decan- 
ters and  tumblers,  and  blue  plates,  and  one 
red  rose  in  a  glass  of  water.  The  furniture 
was  old-fashioned  and  stiff.  Everything  was 
in  keeping,  down  to  the  ponderous  leaden 
inkstand  on  the  round  table.  And  you  may 
fancy  how  pleasant  it  looked,  all  flushed  and 
flickered  over  by  the  light  of  a  brisk  com- 
panionable fire,  and  seen,  in  a  strange,  tilted 
sort  of  perspedive,  in  the  three  compart- 
ments of  the  old  mirror  above  the  chimney. 
As  1  sat  reading  in  the  great  armchair,  1  kept 
looking  round  with  the  tail  of  my  eye  at  the 

59 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

quaint,  bright  pidure  that  was  about  me,  and 
could  not  help  some  pleiisure  and  a  certain 
childish  pride  in  forming  part  of  it.  The  book 
I  read  was  about  Italy  in  the  early  Renais- 
sance, the  pageantries  and  the  light  loves  of 
princes,  the  passion  of  men  for  learning,  and 
poetry,  and  art ;  but  it  was  written,  by  good 
luck,  after  a  solid,  prosaic  fashion,  that  suit- 
ed the  room  infinitely  more  nearly  than  the 
matter;  and  the  result  was  that  I  thought 
less,  perhaps,  of  Lippo  Lippi,  or  Lorenzo,  or 
Politian,  than  of  the  good  Englishman  who 
had  written  in  that  volume  what  he  knew 
of  them,  and  taken  so  much  pleasure  in  his 
solemn  polysyllables. 

1  was  not  left  without  society.  My  landlord 
had  a  very  pretty  little  daughter,  whom  we 
shall  call  Lizzie.  If  1  had  made  any  notes  at 
the  time,  I  might  be  able  to  tell  you  some- 
thing definite  of  her  appearance.  But  faces 
have  a  trick  of  growing  more  and  more  spir- 
itualised and  abstract  in  the  memory,  until 
nothing  remains  of  them  but  a  look,  a  haunt- 
ing expression;  just  that  secret  quality  in  a 
face  that  is  apt  to  slip  out  somehow  under 
the  cunningest  painter's  touch,  and  leave  the 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

portrait  dead  for  the  lack  of  it.  And  if  it  is 
hard  to  catch  with  the  finest  of  camel's-hair 
pencils,  you  may  think  how  hopeless  it  must 
be  to  pursue  after  it  with  clumsy  words.  If  1 
say,  for  instance,  that  this  look,  which  I  re- 
member as  Lizzie,  was  something  wistful 
that  seemed  partly  to  come  of  slyness  and  in 
part  of  simplicity,  and  that  I  am  inclined  to 
imagine  it  had  something  to  do  with  the 
daintiest  suspicion  of  a  cast  in  one  of  her 
large  eyes,  I  shall  have  said  all  that  I  can,  and 
the  reader  will  not  be  much  advanced  to- 
wards comprehension.  I  had  struck  up  an 
acquaintance  with  this  little  damsel  in  the 
morning,  and  professed  much  interest  in  her 
dolls,  and  an  impatient  desire  to  see  the  large 
one  which  was  kept  locked  away  for  great 
occasions.  And  so  I  had  not  been  very  long 
in  the  parlour  before  the  door  opened,  and 
in  came  Miss  Lizzie  with  two  dolls  tucked 
clumsily  under  her  arm.  She  was  followed 
by  her  brother  John,  a  year  or  so  younger 
than  herself,  not  simply  to  play  propriety  at 
our  interview,  but  to  show  his  own  two 
whips  in  emulation  of  his  sister's  dolls.  I  did 
my  best  to  make  myself  agreeable  to  my 

6i 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

visitors,  showing  much  admiration  for  the 
dolls  and  dolls'  dresses,  and,  with  a  very 
serious  demeanour,  asking  many  questions 
about  their  age  and  charader.  I  do  not  think 
that  Lizzie  distrusted  my  sincerity,  but  it 
was  evident  that  she  was  both  bewildered 
and  a  little  contemptuous.  Although  she  was 
ready  herself  to  treat  her  dolls  as  if  they  were 
alive,  she  seemed  to  think  rather  poorly  of 
any  grown  person  who  could  fall  heartily 
into  the  spirit  of  the  fi(ftion.  Sometimes  she 
would  look  at  me  with  gravity  and  a  sort  of 
disquietude,  as  though  she  really  feared  I 
must  be  out  of  my  wits.  Sometimes,  as  when 
1  inquired  too  particularly  into  the  question 
of  their  names,  she  laughed  at  me  so  long 
and  heartily  that  1  began  to  feel  almost  em- 
barrassed. But  when,  in  an  evil  moment,  I 
asked  to  be  allowed  to  kiss  one  of  them,  she 
could  keep  herself  no  longer  to  herself. 
Clambering  down  from  the  chair  on  which 
she  sat  perched  to  show  me,  Cornelia-like, 
her  jewels,  she  ran  straight  out  of  the  room 
and  into  the  bar — it  was  just  across  the  pas- 
sage,— and  I  could  hear  her  telling  her 
mother  in  loud  tones,  but  apparently  more 
62 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

in  sorrow  than  in  merriment,  that  the  gentle- 
man in  the  parlour  "wanted  to  kiss  Dolly.  I 
fancy  she  was  determined  to  save  me  from 
this  humiliating  a6lion,  even  in  spite  of  my- 
self, for  she  never  gave  me  the  desired  per- 
mission. She  reminded  me  of  an  old  dog  I 
once  knew,  who  would  never  suffer  the 
master  of  the  house  to  dance,  out  of  an  ex- 
aggerated sense  of  the  dignity  of  that  mas- 
ter's place  and  carriage. 

After  the  young  people  were  gone  there 
was  but  one  more  incident  ere  I  went  to  bed. 
I  heard  a  party  of  children  go  up  and  down 
the  dark  street  for  a  while,  singing  together 
sweetly.  And  the  mystery  of  this  little  inci- 
dent was  so  pleasant  to  me  that  I  purposely 
refrained  from  asking  who  they  were,  and 
wherefore  they  went  singing  at  so  late  an 
hour.  One  can  rarely  be  in  a  pleasant  place 
without  meeting  with  some  pleasant  acci- 
dent. I  have  a  convidion  that  these  children 
would  not  have  gone  singing  before  the  inn 
unless  the  inn-parlour  had  been  the  delight- 
ful place  it  was.  At  least,  if  I  had  been  in  the 
customary  public  room  of  the  modern  hotel, 
with  all  its  disproportions  and  discomforts, 

(>3 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

my  ears  would  have  been  dull,  and  there 
would  have  been  some  ugly  temper  or  other 
uppermost  in  my  spirit,  and  so  they  would 
have  wasted  their  songs  upon  an  unworthy 
hearer. 

Next  morning  I  went  along  to  visit  the 
church.  It  is  a  long-backed  red-and-white 
building,  very  much  restored,  and  stands  in 
a  pleasant  graveyard  among  those  great 
trees  of  which  I  have  spoken  already.  The 
sky  was  drowned  in  a  mist.  Now  and  again 
pulses  of  cold  wind  went  about  the  enclo- 
sure, and  set  the  branches  busy  overhead, 
and  the  dead  leaves  scurrying  into  the  angles 
of  the  church  buttresses.  Now  and  again, 
also,  1  could  hear  the  dull  sudden  fall  of  a 
chestnut  among  the  grass — the  dog  would 
bark  before  the  reftory  door — or  there  would 
come  a  clinking  of  pails  from  the  stable-yard 
behind.  But  in  spite  of  these  occasional  in- 
terruptions— in  spite,  also,  of  the  continu- 
ous autumn  twittering  that  filled  the  trees — 
the  chief  impression  somehow  was  one  as  of 
utter  silence,  insomuch  that  the  little  green- 
ish bell  that  peeped  out  of  a  window  in  the 
tower  disquieted  me  with  a  sense  of  some 
04 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

possible  and  more  inharmonious  disturb- 
ance. The  grass  was  wet,  as  if  with  a  hoar- 
frost that  had  just  been  melted.  I  do  not 
know  that  ever  I  saw  a  morning  more  au- 
tumnal. As  1  went  to  and  fro  among  the 
graves,  I  saw  some  flowers  set  reverently 
before  a  recently  ereded  tomb,  and  drawing 
near  was  almost  startled  to  find  they  lay  on 
the  grave  of  a  man  seventy-two  years  old 
when  he  died.  We  are  accustomed  to  strew 
flowers  only  over  the  young,  where  love  has 
been  cut  short  untimely,  and  great  possibil- 
ities have  been  restrained  by  death.  We 
strew  them  there  in  token  that  these  possi- 
bilities, in  some  deeper  sense,  shall  yet  be 
realised,  and  the  touch  of  our  dead  loves  re- 
main with  us  and  guide  us  to  the  end.  And 
yet  there  was  more  significance,  perhaps, 
and  perhaps  a  greater  consolation,  in  this 
little  nosegay  on  the  grave  of  one  who  had 
died  old.  We  are  apt  to  make  so  much  of  the 
tragedy  of  death,  and  think  so  little  of  the 
enduring  tragedy  of  some  men's  lives,  that 
we  see  more  to  lament  for  in  a  life  cut  off  in 
the  midst  of  usefulness  and  love,  than  in  one 
that  miserably  survives  all  love  and  useful- 

65 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ness,  and  goes  about  the  world  the  phantom 
of  itself,  without  hope,  or  joy,  or  any  con- 
solation. These  flowers  seemed  not  so  much 
the  token  of  love  that  survived  death,  as  of 
something  yet  more  beautiful — of  love  that 
had  lived  a  man's  life  out  to  an  end  with 
him,  and  been  faithful  and  companionable, 
and  not  weary  of  loving,  throughout  all 
these  years. 

The  morning  cleared  a  little,  and  the  sky 
was  once  more  the  old  stone-coloured  vault 
over  the  sallow  meadows  and  the  russet 
woods,  as  1  set  forth  on  a  dog-cart  from 
Wendover  to  Tring.  The  road  lay  for  a  good 
distance  along  the  side  of  the  hills,  with  the 
great  plain  below  on  one  hand,  and  the 
beech-woods  above  on  the  other.  The  fields 
were  busy  with  people  ploughing  and  sow- 
ing; every  here  and  there  a  jug  of  ale  stood 
in  the  angle  of  the  hedge,  and  1  could  see 
many  a  team  wait  smoking  in  the  furrow  as 
ploughman  or  sower  stepped  aside  for  a  mo- 
ment to  take  a  draught.  Over  all  the  brown 
ploughlands,  and  under  all  the  leafless 
hedgerows,  there  was  a  stout  piece  of  labour 
abroad,  and,  as  it  were,  a  spirit  of  picnic. 
66 


AN  A  UTUMN  EFFECT 

The  horses  smoked  and  the  men  laboured 
and  shouted  and  drank  in  the  sharp  autumn 
morning;  so  that  one  had  a  strong  efTe(ft  of 
large,  open-air  existence.  The  fellow  who 
drove  me  was  something  of  a  humourist; 
and  his  conversation  was  all  in  praise  of  an 
agricultural  labourer's  way  of  life.  It  was  he 
who  called  my  attention  to  these  jugs  of  ale 
by  the  hedgerow;  he  could  not  sufficiently 
express  the  liberality  of  these  men's  wages; 
he  told  me  how  sharp  an  appetite  was  given 
by  breaking  up  the  earth  in  the  morning  air, 
whether  with  plough  or  spade,  and  cordially 
admired  this  provision  of  nature.  He  sang  O 
fortunatos  agricolas!  indeed,  in  every  possi- 
ble key,  and  with  many  cunning  infledions, 
till  1  began  to  wonder  what  was  the  use  of 
such  people  as  Mr.  Arch,  and  to  sing  the 
same  air  myself  in  a  more  diffident  manner. 
Tring  was  reached,  and  then  Tring  rail- 
way-station ;  for  the  two  are  not  very  near, 
the  good  people  of  Tring  having  held  the 
railway,  of  old  days,  in  extreme  apprehen- 
sion, lest  some  day  it  should  break  loose  in 
the  town  and  work  mischief.  I  had  a  last 
walk,  among  russet  beeches  as  usual,  and 

67 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  air  filled,  as  usual,  with  the  carolling  of 
larks;  1  heard  shots  fired  in  the  distance,  and 
saw,  as  a  new  sign  of  the  fulfilled  autumn, 
two  horsemen  exercising  a  pack  of  fox- 
hounds. And  then  the  train  came  and  carried 
me  back  to  London. 


68 


IV 

A  WINTER'S  WALK  IN  CAR- 
RICK  AND  GALLOWAY 

A  Fragment  :  i8-/6 

'^/^df^"^^'^  the  famous  bridge  of  Doon,  Kyle, 
y^lAs^  the  central  district  of  the  shire  of 
^i^^fe^  Ayr,  marches  with  Carrick,  the  most 
southerly.  On  the  Carrick  side  of  the  river 
rises  a  hill  of  somewhat  gentle  conformation, 
cleft  with  shallow  dells,  and  sown  here  and 
there  with  farms  and  tufts  of  wood.  Inland,  it 
loses  itself,  joining,  I  suppose,  the  great  herd 
of  similar  hills  that  occupies  the  centre  of  the 
Lowlands.  Towards  the  sea,  it  swells  out  the 
coast-line  into  a  protuberance,  like  a  bay- 
window  in  a  plan,  and  is  fortified  against  the 
surf  behind  bold  crags.  This  hill  is  known  as 
the  Brown  Hill  of  Carrick,  or,  more  shortly, 
Brown  Carrick. 

It  had  snowed  overnight.  The  fields  were 
all  sheeted  up;  they  were  tucked  in  among 
the  snow,  and  their  shape  was  modelled 

60 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

through  the  pliant  counterpane,  like  children 
tucked  in  by  a  fond  mother.  The  wind  had 
made  ripples  and  folds  upon  the  surface,  like 
what  the  sea,  in  quiet  weather,  leaves  upon 
the  sand.  There  was  a  frosty  stifle  in  the  air. 
An  effusion  of  coppery  light  on  the  summit 
of  Brown  Carrick  showed  where  the  sun 
was  trying  to  look  through;  but  along  the 
horizon  clouds  of  cold  fog  had  settled  down, 
so  that  there  was  no  distindion  of  sky  and 
sea.  Over  the  white  shoulders  of  the  head- 
lands, or  in  the  opening  of  bays,  there  was 
nothing  but  a  great  vacancy  and  blackness; 
and  the  road  as  it  drew  near  the  edge  of  the 
cliff  seemed  to  skirt  the  shores  of  creation 
and  void  space. 

The  snow  crunched  under  foot,  and  at 
farms  all  the  dogs  broke  out  barking  as  they 
smelt  a  passer-by  upon  the  road.  I  met  a  fine 
old  fellow,  who  might  have  sat  as  the  father 
in  "The  Cottar's  Saturday  Night,"  and  who 
swore  most  heathenishly  at  a  cow  he  was 
driving.  And  a  little  after  1  scraped  acquaint- 
ance with  a  poor  body  tramping  out  to 
gather  cockles.  His  face  was  wrinkled  by  ex- 
posure; it  was  broken  up  into  tlakes  and 
70 


A  WINTER'S  WALK 

channels,  like  mud  beginning  to  dry,  and 
weathered  in  two  colours,  an  incongruous 
pink  and  grey.  He  had  a  faint  air  of  being 
surprised — which,  God  knows,  he  might 
well  be — that  life  had  gone  so  ill  with  him. 
The  shape  of  his  trousers  was  in  itself  a  jest, 
so  strangely  were  they  bagged  and  ravelled 
about  his  knees;  and  his  coat  was  all  be- 
daubed with  clay  as  though  he  had  lain  in  a 
rain-dub  during  the  New  Year's  festivity.  I 
will  own  1  was  not  sorry  to  think  he  had  had 
a  merry  New  Year,  and  been  young  again  for 
an  evening;  but  1  was  sorry  to  see  the  mark 
still  there.  One  could  not  expecft  such  an  old 
gentleman  to  be  much  of  a  dandy,  or  a  great 
student  of  respeftability  in  dress;  but  there 
might  have  been  a  wife  at  home,  who  had 
brushed  out  similar  stains  after  fifty  New 
Years,  now  become  old,  or  a  round-armed 
daughter,  who  would  wish  to  have  him 
neat,  were  it  only  out  of  self-resped  and  for 
the  ploughman  sweetheart  when  he  looks 
round  at  night.  Plainly,  there  was  nothing  of 
this  in  his  life,  and  years  and  loneliness  hung 
heavily  on  his  old  arms.  He  was  seventy-six, 
he  told  me;  and  nobody  would  give  a  day's 

7> 


£SSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

work  to  a  man  that  age:  they  would  think 
he  couldn't  do  it.  "And,  'deed,"  he  went  on, 
with  a  sad  little  chuckle,  "  'deed,  I  doubt  if! 
could."  He  said  good-bye  to  me  at  a  foot- 
path, and  crippled  wearily  off  to  his  work. 
It  will  make  your  heart  ache  if  you  think  of 
his  old  fingers  groping  in  the  snow. 

He  told  me  I  was  to  turn  down  beside  the 
school-house  for  Dunure.  And  so,  when  1 
found  a  lone  house  among  the  snow,  and 
heard  a  babble  of  childish  voices  from  with- 
in, I  struck  off  into  a  steep  road  leading 
downwards  to  the  sea.  Dunure  lies  close  un- 
der the  steep  hill :  a  haven  among  the  rocks,  a 
breakwater  in  consummate  disrepair,  much 
apparatus  for  drying  nets,  and  a  score  or  so 
of  fishers'  houses.  Hard  by,  a  few  shards  of 
ruined  castle  overhang  the  sea,  a  few  vaults, 
and  one  tall  gable  honeycombed  with  win- 
dows. The  snow  lay  on  the  beach  to  the  tide- 
mark.  It  wasdaubed  on  to  the  sills  of  theruin : 
it  roosted  in  the  crannies  of  the  rock  like 
white  sea-birds ;  even  on  outlying  reefs  there 
wouldbea  little  cockofsnow,likea  toy  light- 
house. Everything  was  grey  and  white  in  a 
cold  and  dolorous  sort  of  shepherd's  plaid. 
72 


i    i-  ^i^l 

Q 

JJMI  ■  'j^^l 

z 

'  an  ft  '<  i^^l 

< 

jHffifk^Jj^H 

rS^'^H 

H 

'  <<   Mifn^l 

O 

'VtfwH 

U 

m 

i^^^^l 

UJ 

Z 

D 

"^      wi 

Q 

Cm            m 

H 

1                      ''M 

1        < 

^          \  '■* 

1         UJ 

-J 

1^- 

CO 

< 

^    ''  ^ 

CJ 

^    i^ 

1 

A  WINTERS  WALK 

In  the  profound  silence,  broken  only  by  the 
noise  of  oars  at  sea,  a  horn  was  sounded 
twice ;  and  I  saw  the  postman,  girt  with  two 
bags,  pause  a  moment  at  the  end  of  the  cla- 
chan  for  letters.  It  is,  perhaps,  characteristic 
of  Dunure  that  none  were  brought  him. 

The  people  at  the  public-house  did  not 
seem  well  pleased  to  see  me,  and  though  I 
would  foin  have  stayed  by  the  kitchen  fire, 
sent  me  "ben  the  hoose"  into  the  guest- 
room. This  guest-room  at  Dunure  was 
painted  in  quite  aesthetic  fashion.  There  are 
rooms  in  the  same  taste  not  a  hundred  miles 
from  London,  where  persons  of  an  extreme 
sensibility  meet  together  without  embar- 
rassment. It  was  all  in  a  fine  dull  bottle-green 
and  black;  a  grave  harmonious  piece  of  col- 
ouring, with  nothing,  so  far  as  coarser  folk 
can  judge,  to  hurt  the  better  feelings  of  the 
most  exquisite  purist.  A  cherry-red  half 
window-blindkept  up  animaginary  warmth 
in  the  cold  room,  and  threw  quite  a  glow  on 
the  floor.  Twelve  cockle-shells  and  a  half- 
penny china  figure  were  ranged  solemnly 
along  the  mantel-shelf.  Even  the  spittoon 
was  an  original  note,  and  instead  of  sawdust 

73 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

contained  sea-shells.  And  as  for  the  hearth- 
rug, it  would  merit  an  article  to  itself,  and  a 
coloured  diagram  to  help  the  text.  It  was 
patchwork,  but  the  patchwork  of  the  poor: 
no  glowing  shreds  of  old  brocade  and  Chi- 
nese silk,  shaken  together  in  the  kaleido- 
scope of  some  tasteful  housewife's  fancy; 
but  a  work  of  art  in  its  own  way,  and  plainly 
a  labour  of  love.  The  patches  came  exclu- 
sively from  people's  raiment.  There  was  no 
colour  more  brilliant  than  a  heather  mixture ; 
"  My  Johnnie's  grey  breeks,"  well  polished 
over  the  oar  on  the  boat's  thwart,  entered 
largely  into  its  composition.  And  the  spoils 
of  an  old  black  cloth  coat,  that  had  been 
many  a  Sunday  to  church,  added  something 
(save  the  mark !)  of  preciousness  to  the  mate- 
rial. 

While  1  was  at  luncheon  four  carters  came 
in  —  long-limbed,  muscular  Ayrshire  Scots, 
with  lean,  intelligent  faces.  Four  quarts  of 
stout  were  ordered;  they  kept  filling  the 
tumbler  with  the  other  hand  as  they  drank; 
and  in  less  time  than  it  takes  me  to  write 
these  words  the  four  quarts  were  finished  — 
another  round  was  proposed,  discussed,  and 
74 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

negatived  —  and  they  were  creaking  out  of 
tlie  village  with  their  carts. 

The  ruins  drew  you  towards  them.  You 
never  saw  any  place  more  desolate  from  a  dis- 
tance, nor  one  that  less  belied  its  promise 
near  at  hand.  Some  crows  and  gulls  flew 
away  croaking  as  I  scrambled  in.  The  snow 
had  drifted  into  the  vaults.  The  clachan  dab- 
bled with  snow,  the  white  hills,  the  black 
sky,  the  sea  marked  in  the  coves  with  faint 
circular  wrinkles,  the  whole  world,  as  it 
looked  from  a  loophole  in  Dunure,  was  cold, 
wretched,  and  out-at-elbows.  If  you  had 
been  a  wicked  baron  and  compelled  to  stay 
there  all  the  afternoon,  you  would  have  had 
a  rare  fit  of  remorse.  How  you  would  have 
heaped  up  the  fire  and  gnawed  your  fingers ! 
I  think  it  would  have  come  to  homicide  be- 
fore the  evening  —  if  it  were  only  for  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  something  red!  And  the 
masters  of  Dunure,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  were 
remarkable  of  old  for  inhumanity.  One  of 
these  vaults  where  the  snow  had  drifted  was 
that  "blackvoute"  where  "Mr.  Alane Stew- 
art, Commendatour  of  Crossraguel,"  en- 
dured his  fiery  trials.  On  the  ist  and  7th  of 

75 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

September,  1370  (ill  dates  for  Mr.  Alan!), 
Gilbert,  Earl  of  Cassilis,  his  chaplain,  his 
baker,  his  cook,  his  pantryman,  and  another 
servant,  bound  the  poorCommendator  "be- 
twix  an  iron  chimlay  and  a  fire,"  and  there 
cruelly  roasted  him  until  he  signed  away  his 
abbacy.  It  is  one  of  the  ugliest  stories  of  an 
ugly  period,  but  not,  somehow,  without 
such  a  flavour  of  the  ridiculous  as  makes  it 
hard  to  sympathise  quite  seriously  with  the 
vidim.  And  it  is  consoling  to  remember  that 
he  got  away  at  last,  and  kept  his  abbacy, 
and,  over  and  above,  had  a  pension  from  the 
Earl  until  he  died. 

Some  way  beyond  Dunure  a  wide  bay,  of 
somewhat  less  unkindly  aspect,  opened  out. 
Colzean  plantations  lay  all  along  the  steep 
shore,  and  there  was  a  wooded  hill  towards 
the  centre,  where  the  trees  made  a  sort  of 
shadowy  etching  over  the  snow.  The  road 
went  down  and  up,  and  past  a  blacksmith's 
cottage  that  made  fine  music  in  the  valley. 
Three  compatriots  of  Burns  drove  up  to  me 
in  a  cart.  They  were  all  drunk,  and  asked  me 
jeeringly  if  this  was  the  way  to  Dunure.  1 
told  them  it  was;  and  my  answer  was  re- 
76 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

ceived  with  unfeigned  merriment.  One  gen- 
tleman was  so  much  tici<led  he  nearly  fell 
out  of  the  cart;  indeed,  he  was  only  saved  by 
a  companion,  who  either  had  not  so  fine  a 
sense  of  humour  or  had  drunken  less. 

"The  toune  of  Mayboll,"  says  the  inimi- 
table Abercrummie,^  "stands  upon  an  as- 
cending ground  from  east  to  west,  and  lyes 
open  to  the  south.  It  hath  one  principal! 
street,  with  houses  upon  both  sides,  built  of 
freestone;  and  it  is  beautifyed  with  the  sit- 
uation of  two  castles,  one  at  each  end  of  this 
street.  That  on  the  east  belongs  to  the  Erie 
of  Cassilis.  On  the  west  end  is  a  castle, 
which  belonged  sometime  to  the  laird  of 
Blairquan,  which  is  now  the  tolbuith,  and  is 
adorned  with  a  pyremide  [conical  roof],  and 
a  row  of  ballesters  round  it  raised  from  the 
top  of  the  staircase,  into  which  they  have 
mounted  a  fyne  clock.  There  be  four  lanes 
which  pass  from  the  principal!  street  ;  one  is 
called  the  Black  Vennel,  which  is  steep,  de- 
clining to  the  south-west,  and  leads  to  a 
lower  street,  which  is  far  larger  than  the 

*  William  Abercrombie.  See  Fa%ti  Ecclesice  Scoticance, 
under  "Maybole"  (Partiii.). 

77 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

high  chiefe  street,  and  it  runs  from  the  Kirk- 
hind  to  the  Well  Trees,  in  which  there  have 
been  many  pretty  buildings,  belonging  to 
the  severall  gentry  of  the  countrey,  who 
were  wont  to  resort  thither  in  winter,  and 
divert  themselves  in  converse  together  at 
their  owne  houses.  It  was  once  the  principal] 
street  of  the  town ;  but  many  of  these  houses 
of  the  gentry  having  been  decayed  and 
ruined,  it  has  lost  much  of  its  ancient  beau- 
tie.  Just  opposite  to  this  vennel,  there  is  an- 
other that  leads  north-west,  from  the  chiefe 
street  to  the  green,  which  is  a  pleasant  plott 
of  ground,  enclosed  round  with  an  earthen 
wall,  wherein  they  were  wont  to  play  foot- 
ball, but  now  at  the  Gowff  and  by  asse-bowls. 
The  houses  of  this  towne,  on  both  sides  of 
the  street,  have  their  several  gardens  belong- 
ing to  them ;  and  in  the  lower  street  there  be 
some  pretty  orchards,  that  yield  store  of 
good  fruit."  As  Patterson  says,  this  descrip- 
tion is  near  enough  even  to-day,  and  is 
mighty  nicely  written  to  boot.  I  am  bound 
to  add,  of  my  own  experience,  that  May  bole 
is  tumbledown  and  dreary.  Prosperous 
enough  in  reality,  it  has  an  air  of  decay;  and 
78 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

though  the  population  has  increased,  a  roof- 
less house  every  here  and  there  seems  to 
protest  the  contrary.  The  women  are  more 
than  well-favoured,  and  the  men  fine  tall 
fellows;  but  they  look  slipshod  and  dissi- 
pated. As  they  slouched  at  street  corners,  or 
stood  about  gossiping  in  the  snow,  it  seemed 
they  would  have  been  more  at  home  in  the 
slums  of  a  large  city  than  here  in  a  country 
place  betwixt  a  village  and  a  town.  I  heard  a 
great  deal  about  drinking,  and  a  great  deal 
about  rehgious  revivals :  two  things  in  which 
the  Scottish  character  is  emphatic  and  most 
unlovely.  In  particular,  I  heard  of  clergymen 
who  were  employing  their  time  in  explain- 
ing to  a  delighted  audience  the  physics  of 
the  Second  Coming.  It  is  not  very  likely  any 
of  us  will  be  asked  to  help.  If  we  were,  it  is 
likely  we  should  receive  instruftions  for  the 
occasion,  and  that  on  more  reliable  authority. 
And  so  I  can  only  figure  to  myself  a  congre- 
gation truly  curious  in  such  flights  of  theo- 
logical fancy,  as  one  of  veteran  and  accom- 
plished saints,  who  have  fought  the  good 
fight  to  an  end  and  outlived  all  worldly  pas- 
sion, and  are  to  be  regarded  rather  as  a  part 

79 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

of  the  Church  Triumphant  than  the  poor, 
imperfect  company  on  earth.  And  yet  I  saw 
some  young  fellows  about  the  smoking- 
room  who  seemed,  in  the  eyes  of  one  who 
cannot  count  himself  strait-laced,  in  need  of 
some  more  practical  sort  of  teaching.  They 
seemed  only  eager  to  get  drunk,  and  to  do 
so  speedily.  It  was  not  much  more  than  a 
week  after  the  New  Year;  and  to  hear  them 
return  on  their  past  bouts  with  a  gusto  un- 
speakable was  not  altogether  pleasing.  Here 
is  one  snatch  of  talk,  for  the  accuracy  of 
which  I  can  vouch — 

"Ye  had  a  spree  here  last  Tuesday  ?" 

"We  had  that!" 

"  1  wasna  able  to  be  oot  o'  my  bed.  Man, 
I  was  awful  bad  on  Wednesday." 

"  Ay,  ye  were  gey  bad." 

And  you  should  have  seen  the  bright  eyes, 
and  heard  the  sensual  accents!  They  recalled 
their  doings  with  devout  gusto  and  a  sort  of 
rational  pride.  Schoolboys,  after  their  first 
drunkenness,  are  not  more  boastful;  a  cock 
does  not  plume  himself  with  a  more  un- 
mingled  satisfaction  as  he  paces  forth  among 
his  harem;  and  yet  these  were  grown  men, 
80 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

and  by  no  means  short  of  wit.  It  was  hard  to 
suppose  they  were  very  eager  about  the 
Second  Coming:  it  seemed  as  if  some  ele- 
mentary notions  of  temperance  for  the  men 
and  seemliness  for  the  women  would  have 
gone  nearer  the  mark.  And  yet,  as  it  seemed 
to  me  typical  of  much  that  is  evil  in  Scotland, 
Maybole  is  also  typical  of  much  that  is  best. 
Some  of  the  fadories,  which  have  taken  the 
place  of  weaving  in  the  town's  economy, 
were  originally  founded  and  are  still  pos- 
sessed by  self-made  men  of  the  sterling, 
stout  old  breed — fellows  who  made  some 
little  bit  of  an  invention,  borrowed  some 
little  pocketful  of  capital,  and  then,  step  by 
step,  in  courage,  thrift  and  industry,  fought 
their  way  upwards  to  an  assured  position. 
Abercrummie  has  told  you  enough  of  the 
Tolbooth;  but,  as  a  bit  of  spelling,  this  in- 
scription on  the  Tolbooth  bell  seems  too  de- 
licious to  withhold :  ' '  This  bell  is  founded  at 
Maiboll  Bi  Danel  Geli,  a  Frenchman,  the  6th 
November,  1696,  Bi  appointment  of  the  her- 
itors of  the  parish  of  Maiyboll."  The  Castle 
deserves  more  notice.  It  is  a  large  and 
shapely  tower,  plain  from  the  ground  up- 

81 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

wards,  but  with  a  zone  of  ornamentation 
running  about  the  top.  In  a  general  way  this 
adornment  is  perched  on  the  very  summit  of 
the  chimney-stacks;  but  there  is  one  corner 
more  elaborate  than  the  rest.  A  very  heavy 
string-course  runs  round  the  upper  story, 
and  just  above  this,  facing  up  the  street,  the 
tower  carries  a  small  oriel  window,  fluted 
and  corbelled  and  carved  about  with  stone 
heads.  It  is  so  ornate  it  has  somewhat  the  air 
of  a  shrine.  And  it  was,  indeed,  the  casket  of 
a  very  precious  jewel,  for  in  the  room  to 
which  it  gives  light  lay,  for  long  years,  the 
heroine  of  the  sweet  old  ballad  of  "Johnnie 
Faa" — she  who,  at  the  call  of  the  gipsies' 
songs,  "came  tripping  down  the  stair,  and 
all  her  maids  before  her,"  Some  people  say 
the  ballad  has  no  basis  in  fad,  and  have 
written,  I  believe,  unanswerable  papers  to 
the  proof.  But  in  the  face  of  all  that,  the  very 
look  of  that  high  oriel  window  convinces  the 
imagination,  and  we  enter  into  all  the  sor- 
rows of  the  imprisoned  dame.  We  conceive 
the  burthen  of  the  long,  lack-lustre  days, 
when  she  leaned  her  sick  head  against  the 
mullions,  and  saw  the  burghers  loafing  in 
82 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

Maybole  High  Street,  and  the  children  at 
play,  and  ruffling  gallants  riding  by  from 
hunt  or  foray.  We  conceive  the  passion  of 
odd  moments,  when  the  wind  threw  up  to 
her  some  snatch  of  song,  and  her  heart  grew 
hot  within  her,  and  her  eyes  overflowed  at 
the  memory  of  the  past.  And  even  if  the  tale 
be  not  true  of  this  or  that  lady,  or  this  or  that 
old  tower,  it  is  true  in  the  essence  of  all  men 
and  women:  for  all  of  us,  sometime  or  other, 
hear  the  gipsies  singing ;  over  all  of  us  is  the 
glamour  cast.  Some  resist  and  sit  resolutely 
by  the  fire.  Most  go  and  are  brought  back 
again,  like  Lady  Cassilis.  A  few,  of  the  tribe 
of  Waring,  go  and  are  seen  no  more;  only 
now  and  again,  at  springtime,  when  the  gip- 
sies' song  is  afloat  in  the  amethyst  evening, 
we  can  catch  their  voices  in  the  glee. 

By  night  it  was  clearer,  and  Maybole  more 
visible  than  during  the  day.  Clouds  coursed 
over  the  sky  in  great  masses;  the  full  moon 
battled  the  other  way,  and  lit  up  the  snow 
with  gleams  of  flying  silver;  the  town  came 
down  the  hill  in  a  cascade  of  brown  gables, 
bestridden  by  smooth  white  roofs,  and  span- 
gled here  and  there  with  lighted  windows. 

83 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

At  either  end  the  snow  stood  high  up  in  the 
darkness,  on  the  peak  of  the  Tolbooth  and 
among  the  chimneys  of  the  Castle.  As  the 
moon  flashed  a  bull's-eye  glitter  across  the 
town  between  the  racing  clouds,  the  white 
roofs  leaped  into  relief  over  the  gables  and 
the  chimney-stacks,  and  their  shadows  over 
the  white  roofs.  In  the  town  itself  the  lit  face 
of  the  clock  peered  down  the  street;  an  hour 
was  hammered  out  on  Mr.  Geli's  bell,  and 
from  behind  the  red  curtains  ofa  public-house 
some  one  trolled  out  —  a  compatriot  of 
Burns,  again ! — "Thesauttearblin'smy  e'e.'" 
Next  morning  there  was  sun  and  a  flapping 
wind.  From  the  street  corners  of  Maybole  1 
could  catch  breezy  glimpses  of  green  fields. 
The  road  underfoot  was  wet  and  heavy  — 
part  ice,  part  snow,  part  water;  and  any  one 
I  met  greeted  me,  by  way  of  salutation,  with 
"A  fine  thowe"  (thaw).  My  way  lay  among 
rather  bleak  hills,  and  past  bleak  ponds  and 
dilapidated  castles  and  monasteries,  to  the 
Highland-looking  village  of  Kirkoswald.  It 
has  little  claim  to  notice,  save  that  Burns 
came  there  tostudy  surveying  inthesummer 
of  1777,  and  there  also,  in  the  kirkyard,  the 


A  WINTERS  WALK 

original  of  Tarn  o'  Shanter  sleeps  his  last 
sleep.  It  is  worth  noticing,  however,  that 
this  was  the  first  place  I  thought ' 'Highland- 
looking."  Over  the  hill  from  Kirkoswald  a 
farm-road  leads  to  the  coast.  As  1  came  down 
above  Turnberry,  the  sea  view  was  indeed 
strangely  different  from  the  day  before.  The 
cold  fogs  Were  all  blown  away;  and  there 
was  Ailsa  Craig,  like  a  refradion,  magnified 
and  deformed,  of  the  Bass  Rock;  and  there 
were  the  chiselled  mountain-tops  of  Arran, 
veined  and  tipped  with  snow;  and  behind, 
and  fainter,  the  low,  blue  land  of  Cantyre. 
Cottony  clouds  stood,  in  a  great  castle,  over 
the  top  of  Arran,  and  blew  out  in  long 
streamers  to  the  south.  The  sea  was  bitten 
all  over  with  white;  little  ships,  tacking  up 
and  down  the  Firth,  lay  over  at  different 
angles  in  the  wind.  On  Shanter  they  were 
ploughing  lea;  a  cart  foal,  all  in  a  field  by 
himself,  capered  and  whinnied  as  if  the 
spring  were  in  him. 

The  road  from  Turnberry  to  Girvan  lies 
along  the  shore,  among  sand-hills  and  by 
wildernesses  of  tumbled  bent.  Every  here 
and  there  a  few  cottages  stood  together  be- 

85 


BSSAVS  AND  CRITICISMS 

side  a  bridge.  They  had  one  odd  feature,  not 
easy  to  describe  in  words:  a  triangular  porch 
projeded  from  above  the  door,  supported  at 
the  apex  by  a  single  upright  post;  a  second- 
ary door  was  hinged  to  the  post,  and  could 
be  hasped  on  either  cheek  of  the  real  en- 
trance; so,  whether  the  wind  was  north  or 
south,  the  cotter  could  make  himself  a  tri- 
angular bight  of  shelter  where  to  set  his 
chair  and  finish  a  pipe  with  comfort.  There  is 
one  objedion  to  this  device:  for,  as  the  post 
stands  in  the  middle  of  the  fairway,  any  one 
precipitately  issuing  from  the  cottage  must 
run  his  chance  of  a  broken  head.  So  far  as  1 
am  aware,  it  is  peculiar  to  the  little  corner  of 
country  about  Girvan.  And  that  corner  is  no- 
ticeable for  more  reasons:  it  is  certainly 
one  of  the  most  charaderistic  distrids  in 
Scotland.  It  has  this  movable  porch  by  way 
of  architecture;  it  has,  as  we  shall  see,  a  sort 
of  remnant  of  provincial  costume,  and  it 
has  the  handsomest  population  in  the  Low- 
lands. .  .  . 


86 


V 

FOREST  NOTES 

1875-6 

ON  THE  TLAIN 

ERHAPS  the  reader  knows  already 
(^  ^5^  ^^^  asped  of  the  great  levels  of  the 

Gatinais,  where  they  border  with 
the  wooded  hills  of  Fontainebleau.  Here  and 
there  a  few  grey  rocks  creep  out  of  the  forest 
as  if  to  sun  themselves.  Here  and  there  a  few 
apple-trees  stand  together  on  a  knoll.  The 
quaint,  undignified  tartan  of  a  myriad  small 
fields  dies  out  into  the  distance;  the  strips 
blend  and  disappear;  and  the  dead  flat  lies 
forth  open  and  empty,  with  no  accident  save 
perhaps  a  thin  line  of  trees  or  faint  church 
spire  against  the  sky.  Solemn  and  vast  at  all 
times,  in  spite  of  pettiness  in  the  near  details, 
the  impression  becomes  more  solemn  and 
vast  towards  evening.  The  sun  goes  down, 
a  swollen  orange,  as  it  were  into  the  sea.  A 
blue-clad  peasant  rides  home,  with  a  harrow 

87 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

smoking  behind  him  among  the  dry  clods. 
Another  still  works  with  his  wife  in  their  lit- 
tle strip.  An  immense  shadow  fills  the  plain ; 
these  people  stand  in  it  up  to  their  shoulders ; 
and  their  heads,  as  they  stoop  over  their 
work  and  rise  again,  are  relieved  from  time 
to  time  against  the  golden  sky. 

These  peasant  farmers  are  well  off  now- 
adays, and  not  by  any  means  overworked; 
but  somehow  you  always  see  in  them  the 
historical  representative  of  the  serf  of  yore, 
and  think  not  so  much  of  present  times, 
which  may  be  prosperous  enough,  as  of  the 
old  days  when  the  peasant  was  taxed  be- 
yond possibility  of  payment,  and  lived,  in 
Michelet's  image,  like  a  hare  between  two 
furrows.  These  very  people  now  weeding 
their  patch  under  the  broad  sunset,  that  very 
man  and  his  wife,  it  seems  to  us,  have  suf- 
fered all  the  wrongs  of  France.  It  is  they 
who  have  been  their  country's  scapegoat  for 
long  ages;  they  who,  generation  after  gen- 
eration, have  sowed  and  not  reaped,  reaped 
and  another  has  garnered;  and  who  have 
now  entered  into  their  reward,  and  enjoy 
their  good  things  in  their  turn.     For  the 


FOREST  NOTES 

days  are  gone  by  when  the  Seigneur  ruled 
and  profited.  "  Le  Seigneur,"  says  the  old 
formula,  ' '  enferme  ses  manants  comme  sous 
porte  et  gonds,  du  ciel  a  la  terre.  Tout  est 
a  lui,  foret  chenue,  oiseau  dans  I'air,  poisson 
dans  I'eau,  bete  au  buisson,  I'onde  qui  coule, 
la  cloche  dont  le  son  au  loin  roule."  Such 
was  his  old  state  of  sovereignty,  a  local  god 
rather  than  a  mere  king.  And  now  you  may 
ask  yourself  where  he  is,  and  look  round  for 
vestiges  of  my  late  lord,  and  in  all  the  coun- 
try-side there  is  no  trace  of  him  but  his  for- 
lorn and  fallen  mansion.  At  the  end  of  a  long 
avenue,  now  sown  with  grain,  in  the  midst 
of  a  close  full  of  cypresses  and  lilacs,  ducks 
and  crowing  chanticleers  and  droning  bees, 
the  old  chateau  lifts  its  red  chimneys  and 
peaked  roofs  and  turning  vanes  into  the 
wind  and  sun.  There  is  a  glad  spring  bustle 
in  the  air,  perhaps,  and  the  lilacs  are  all  in 
flower,  and  the  creepers  green  about  the 
broken  balustrade;  but  no  spring  shall  re- 
vive the  honour  of  the  place.  Old  women  of 
the  people,  little  children  of  the  people, 
saunter  and  gambol  in  the  walled  court  or 
feed  the  ducks  in  the  negleded  moat.  Plough- 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

horses,  mighty  of  limb,  browse  in  the  long 
stables.  The  dial-hand  on  the  clock  waits 
for  some  better  hour.  Out  on  the  plain, 
where  hot  sweat  trickles  into  men's  eyes, 
and  the  spade  goes  in  deep  and  comes  up 
slowly,  perhaps  the  peasant  may  feel  a 
movement  of  joy  at  his  heart  when  he  thinks 
that  these  spacious  chimneys  are  now  cold, 
which  have  so  often  blazed  and  flickered 
upon  gay  folk  at  supper,  while  he  and  his 
hollow-eyed  children  watched  through  the 
night  with  empty  bellies  and  cold  feet.  And 
perhaps,  as  he  raises  his  head  and  sees  the 
forest  lying  like  a  coast-line  of  low  hills 
along  the  sea-like  level  of  the  plain,  perhaps 
forest  and  chateau  hold  no  unsimilar  place 
in  his  affedions. 

if  the  chateau  was  my  lord's  the  forest  was 
my  lord  the  king's;  neither  of  them  for  this 
poor  Jacques.  If  he  thought  to  eke  out  his 
meagre  way  of  life  by  some  petty  theft  of 
wood  for  the  fire,  or  for  a  new  roof-tree,  he 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  whole  de- 
partment, from  the  Grand  Master  of  the 
Woods  and  Waters,  who  was  a  high-born 
lord,  down  to  the  common  sergeant,  who 
90 


FOREST  NOTES 

was  a  peasant  like  himself,  and  wore  stripes 
or  a  bandoleer  by  way  of  uniform.  For  the 
first  offence,  by  the  Salic  law,  there  was  a 
fine  of  fifteen  sols;  and  should  a  man  be 
taken  more  than  once  in  fault,  or  circum- 
stances aggravate  the  colour  of  his  guilt,  he 
might  be  whipped,  branded,  or  hanged. 
There  was  a  hangman  over  at  Melun,  and,  I 
doubt  not,  a  fine  tall  gibbet  hard  by  the  town 
gate,  where  Jacques  might  see  his  fellows 
dangle  against  the  sky  as  he  went  to  market. 
And  then,  if  he  lived  near  to  a  cover,  there 
would  be  the  more  hares  and  rabbits  to  eat 
out  his  harvest,  and  the  more  hunters  to 
trample  it  down.  My  lord  has  a  new  horn 
from  England.  He  has  laid  out  seven  francs 
in  decorating  it  with  silver  and  gold,  and 
fitting  it  with  a  silken  leash  to  hang  about 
his  shoulder.  The  hounds  have  been  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  Saint  Mesmer, 
or  Saint  Hubert  in  the  Ardennes,  or  some 
other  holy  intercessor  who  has  made  a  spe- 
cialty of  the  health  of  hunting-dogs.  In  the 
grey  dawn  the  game  was  turned  and  the 
branch  broken  by  our  best  piqueur.  A  rare 
day's  hunting  lies  before  us.  Wind  a  jolly 

91 


ESS  A  VS  A  AW  CRITICISMS 

flourish,  sound  the  bieii-aller  with  ail  your 
lungs.  Jacques  must  stand  by,  hat  in  hand, 
while  the  quarry  and  hound  and  huntsman 
sweep  across  his  field,  and  a  year's  sparing 
and  labouring  is  as  though  it  had  not  been. 
If  he  can  see  the  ruin  with  a  good  enough 
grace,  who  knows  but  he  may  fall  in  favour 
with  my  lord;  who  knows  but  his  son  may 
become  the  last  and  least  among  the  ser- 
vants at  his  lordship's  kennel  —  one  of  the 
two  poor  varlets  who  get  no  wages  and 
sleep  at  night  among  the  hounds  ? ' 

For  all  that,  the  forest  has  been  of  use  to 
Jacques,  not  only  warming  him  with  fallen 
wood,  but  giving  him  shelter  in  days  of 
sore  trouble,  when  my  lord  of  the  chateau, 
with  all  his  troopers  and  trumpets,  had  been 
beaten  from  field  after  field  into  some  ulti- 
mate fastness,  or  lay  over-seas  in  an  English 
prison.  In  these  dark  days,  when  the  watch 
on  the  church  steeple  saw  the  smoke  of 
burning  villages  on  the  sky-line,  or  a  clump 

'  "  Deux  poures  varlez  qui  n'ont  nulz  gages  et  qui  gis- 
soient  la  nuit  avec  las  chiens. "  See  Champollion-Figeac's 
Louis  et  Charles  d'Orle'ans,  i.   6},  and  for  my  lord's 
English  horn,  ibid.  96. 
92 


FOREST  NOTES 

of  spears  and  fluttering  pennons  drawing 
nigli  across  the  plain,  these  good  folk  gat 
them  up,  with  all  their  household  gods,  in- 
to the  wood,  whence,  from  some  high  spur, 
their  timid  scouts  migiit  overlook  the  com- 
ing and  going  of  the  marauders,  and  see  the 
harvest  ridden  down,  and  church  and  cot- 
tage go  up  to  heaven  all  night  in  flame.  It 
was  but  an  unhomely  refuge  that  the  woods 
afforded,  where  they  must  abide  all  change 
of  weather  and  keep  house  with  wolves  and 
vipers.  Often  there  was  none  left  alive,  when 
they  returned,  to  show  the  old  divisions  of 
field  from  field.  And  yet,  as  times  went, 
when  the  wolves  entered  at  night  into  de- 
populated Paris,  and  perhaps  De  Retz  was 
passing  by  with  a  company  of  demons  like 
himself,  even  in  these  caves  and  thickets 
there  were  glad  hearts  and  grateful  prayers. 
Once  or  twice,  as  I  say,  in  the  course  of 
the  ages,  the  forest  may  have  served  the 
peasant  well,  but  at  heart  it  is  a  royal  forest, 
and  noble  by  old  association.  These  woods 
have  rung  to  the  horns  of  all  the  kings  of 
France,  from  Philip  Augustus  downwards. 
They  have  seen  Saint  Louis  exercise  the 

9^ 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

dogs  he  brought  with  him  from  Egypt; 
Francis  I.  go  a-hunting  with  ten  thousand 
horses  in  his  train;  and  Peter  of  Russia  fol- 
lowing his  first  stag.  And  so  they  are  still 
haunted  for  the  imagination  by  royal  hunts 
and  progresses,  and  peopled  with  the  faces 
of  memorable  men  of  yore.  And  this  dis- 
tin(5tion  is  not  only  in  virtue  of  the  pastime 
of  dead  monarchs.  Great  events,  great  rev- 
olutions, great  cycles  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
have  here  left  their  note,  here  taken  shape 
in  some  significant  and  dramatic  situation. 
It  was  hence  that  Guise  and  his  leaguers  led 
Charles  the  Ninth  a  prisoner  to  Paris.  Here, 
booted  and  spurred,  and  with  all  his  dogs 
about  him,  Napoleon  met  the  Pope  beside  a 
woodland  cross.  Here,  on  his  way  to  Elba 
not  so  long  after,  he  kissed  the  eagle  of  the 
Old  Guard,  and  spoke  words  of  passionate 
fiirewell  to  his  soldiers.  And  here,  after 
Waterloo,  rather  than  yield  its  ensign  to  the 
new  power,  one  of  his  faithful  regiments 
burned  that  memorial  of  so  much  toil  and 
glory  on  the  Grand  Master's  table,  and  drank 
its  dust  in  brandy,  as  a  devout  priest  con- 
sumes the  remnants  of  the  Host. 
94 


FOREST  NOTES 

IN  THE  SEASON 
Close  into  the  edge  of  the  forest,  so  dose 
that  the  trees  of  the  homage  stand  pleasantly 
about  the  last  houses,  sits  a  certain  small  and 
very  quiet  village.  There  is  but  one  street, 
and  that,  not  long  ago,  was  a  green  lane, 
where  the  cattle  browsed  between  the  door- 
steps. As  you  go  up  this  street,  drawing  ever 
nearer  the  beginning  of  the  wood,  you  will 
arrive  at  last  before  an  inn  where  artists 
lodge.  To  the  door  (for  I  imagine  it  to  be  six 
o'clock  on  some  fine  summer's  even),  half  a 
dozen,  or  maybe  half  a  score,  of  people  have 
brought  out  chairs,  and  now  sit  sunning 
themselves,  and  waiting  the  omnibus  from 
Melun.  If  you  go  on  into  the  court  you  will 
find  as  many  more,  somein  the  billiard-room 
over  absinthe  and  a  match  of  corks,  some 
without  over  a  last  cigar  and  a  vermouth. 
The  doves  coo  and  flutter  from  the  dovecote ; 
Hortense  is  drawing  water  from  the  well; 
and  as  all  the  rooms  open  into  the  court,  you 
can  see  the  white-capped  cook  over  the  fur- 
nace in  the  kitchen,  and  some  idle  painter, 
who  has  stored  his  canvases  and  washed  his 

95 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

brushes,  jangling  a  waltz  on  the  crazy, 
tongue-tied  piano  in  the  salle-a-manger. 
"Edmond,  encore  un  vermouth,"  cries  a  man 
in  velveteen,  adding  in  a  tone  of  apologetic 
afterthought,  "«/z  double,  s'ilvoiis  plait." 
"Where  are  you  working?"  asks  one  in 
pure  white  linen  from  top  to  toe.  "At  the 
Carrefour  de  I'Epine,"  returns  the  other  in 
corduroy  (they  are  all  gaitered,  by  the  way). 
"1  couldn't  do  a  thing  to  it.  I  ran  out  of 
white.  Where  were  you.?"  "I  wasn't  work- 
ing, I  was  looking  for  motives."  Here  is  an 
outbreak  of  jubilation,  and  a  lot  of  men  clus- 
tering together  about  some  new-comer  with 
outstretched  hands;  perhaps  the  "corre- 
spondence" has  come  in  and  brought  So- 
and-so  from  Paris,  or  perhaps  it  is  only  So- 
and-so  who  has  walked  over  from  Chailly  to 
dinner. 

"A  table,  {Messienrs!  "  cries  M.  Siron, 
bearing  through  the  court  the  first  tureen  of 
soup.  And  immediately  the  company  begins 
to  settle  down  about  the  long  tables  in  the 
dining-room,  framed  all  round  with  sketches 
of  all  degrees  of  merit  and  demerit.  There's 
the  big  pidure  of  the  huntsman  winding  a 
q6 


UJ 

u 

r^ 

A 

Q 

^ 

at 

^ 

(I, 

i^ 

- 

^ 

^. 

on 

CO 

"^ 

c>i 

< 

/. 

X 

O 

S; 

i_« 

^■t 

(/^ 

^ 

Z 

"^' 

UJ 

■■^ 

Cu 

S 

OiL  Co 


FOREST  NOTES 

horn  with  a  dead  boar  between  his  legs,  and 
his  legs  —  well,  his  legs  in  stockings.  And 
here  is  the  little  pidure  of  a  raw  mutton- 
chop,  in  which  Such-a-one  knocked  a  hole 
last  summer  with  no  worse  a  missile  than  a 
plum  from  the  dessert.  And  under  all  these 
works  of  art  so  much  eating  goes  forward, 
so  much  drinking,  so  much  jabbering  in 
French  and  English,  that  it  would  do  your 
heart  good  merely  to  peep  and  listen  at  the 
door.  One  man  is  telling  how  they  all  went 
last  year  to  the  fete  at  Fleury,  and  another 
how  well  So-and-so  would  sing  of  an  even- 
ing; and  here  are  a  third  and  fourth  making 
plans  for  the  whole  future  of  their  lives ;  and 
there  is  a  fifth  imitating  a  conjurer  and  mak- 
ing faces  on  his  clenched  fist,  surely  of  all 
arts  the  most  difficult  and  admirable !  A  sixth 
has  eaten  his  fill,  lights  a  cigarette,  and  re- 
signs himself  to  digestion.  A  seventh  has 
just  dropped  in,  and  calls  for  soup.  Number 
eight,  meanwhile,  has  left  the  table,  and  is 
once  more  trampling  the  poor  piano  under 
powerful  and  uncertain  fingers. 

Dinner  over,  peopledrop  outside  to  smoke 
and  chat.  Perhaps  we  go  along  to  visit  our 

91 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

friends  at  the  other  end  of  the  village,  where 
there  is  always  a  good  welcome  and  a  good 
talk,  and  perhaps  some  pickled  oysters  and 
white  wine  to  close  the  evening.  Or  a  dance 
is  organised  in  the  dining-room,  and  the 
piano  exhibits  all  its  paces  under  manful 
jockeying,  to  the  light  of  the  three  or  four 
candles  and  a  lamp  or  two,  while  the  waltz- 
ers  move  to  and  fro  upon  the  wooden  floor, 
and  sober  men,  who  are  not  given  to  such 
light  pleasures,  get  up  on  the  table  or  the 
sideboard,  and  sit  there  looking  on  approv- 
ingly over  a  pipe  and  a  tumbler  of  wine.  Or 
sometimes  —  suppose  my  lady  moon  looks 
forth,  and  the  court  from  out  the  half-lit 
dining-room  seems  nearly  as  bright  as  by 
day,  and  the  light  picks  out  the  window- 
panes,  and  makes  a  clear  shadow  under 
every  vine-leaf  on  the  wall  —  sometimes  a 
picnic  is  proposed,  and  a  basket  made  ready, 
and  a  good  procession  formed  in  front  of  the 
hotel.  The  two  trumpeters  in  honour  go  be- 
fore ;  and  as  we  file  down  the  long  alley,  and 
up  through  devious  footpaths  among  rocks 
and  pine-trees,  with  every  here  and  there  a 
dark  passage  of  shadow,  and  every  here 


FOREST  NOTES 

and  there  a  spacious  outlook  over  moonlit 
woods,  these  two  precede  us  and  sound 
many  a  jolly  flourish  as  they  walk.  We 
gather  ferns  and  dry  boughs  into  the  cavern, 
and  soon  a  good  blaze  flutters  the  shadows 
of  the  old  bandits'  haunt,  and  shows  shapely 
beards  and  comely  faces  and  toilettes  ranged 
about  the  wall.  The  bowl  is  lit,  and  the 
punch  is  burnt  and  sent  round  in  scalding 
thimblefuls.  So  a  good  hour  or  two  may 
pass  with  song  and  jest.  And  then  we  go 
home  in  the  moonlight  morning,  straggling 
a  good  deal  among  the  birch  tufts  and  the 
boulders,  but  ever  called  together  again,  as 
one  of  our  leaders  winds  his  horn.  Perhaps 
some  one  of  the  party  will  not  heed  the 
summons,  but  chooses  out  some  by-way  of 
his  own.  As  he  follows  the  winding  sandy 
road,  he  hears  the  flourishes  grow  fainter 
and  fainter  in  the  distance,  and  die  finally 
out,  and  still  walks  on  in  the  strange  cool- 
ness and  silence  and  between  the  crisp 
lights  and  shadows  of  the  moonlit  woods, 
until  suddenly  the  bell  rings  out  the  hour 
from  far-away  Chailly,  and  he  starts  to  find 
himself  alone.  No  surf-bell  on  forlorn  and 

99 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

perilous  shores,  no  passing  knoll  over  the 
busy  market-place,  can  speak  with  a  more 
heavy  and  disconsolate  tongue  to  human 
ears.  Each  stroke  calls  up  a  host  of  ghostly 
reverberations  in  his  mind.  And  as  he  stands 
rooted,  it  has  grown  once  more  so  utterly 
silent  that  it  seems  to  him  he  might  hear 
the  church  bells  ring  the  hour  out  all  the 
world  over,  not  at  Chailly  only,  but  in  Paris, 
and  away  in  outlandish  cities,  and  in  the 
village  on  the  river,  where  his  childhood 
passed  between  the  sun  and  flowers. 

IDLE  HOURS 
The  woods  by  night,  in  all  their  uncanny 
eflfeft,  are  not  rightly  to  be  understood  until 
you  can  compare  them  with  the  woods  by 
day.  The  stillness  of  the  medium,  the  floor 
of  glittering  sand,  these  trees  that  go  stream- 
ing up  like  monstrous  sea-weeds  and  waver 
in  the  moving  winds  like  the  weeds  in  sub- 
marine currents,  all  these  set  the  mind  work- 
ing on  the  thought  of  what  you  may  have 
seen  off  a  foreland  or  over  the  side  of  a  boat, 
and  make  you  feel  like  a  diver,  down  in  the 
quiet  water,  fathoms  below  the  tumbling, 

lOO 


FOREST  NOTES 

transitory  surface  of  the  sea.  And  yet  in  it- 
self, as  I  say,  the  strangeness  of  these  noc- 
turnal solitudes  is  not  to  be  felt  fully  without 
the  sense  of  contrast.  You  must  have  risen 
in  the  morning  and  seen  the  woods  as  they 
are  by  day,  kindled  and  coloured  in  the  sun's 
light;  you  must  have  felt  the  odour  of  in- 
numerable trees  at  even,  the  unsparing  heat 
along  the  forest  roads,  and  the  coolness  of 
the  groves. 

And  on  the  first  morning  you  will  doubt- 
less rise  betimes.  If  you  have  not  been  wak- 
ened before  by  the  visit  of  some  adventurous 
pigeon,  you  will  be  wakened  as  soon  as  the 
sun  can  reach  your  window — for  there  are 
no  blinds  or  shutters  to  keep  him  out — and 
the  room,  with  its  bare  wood  floor  and  bare 
whitewashed  walls,  shines  all  round  you  in 
a  sort  of  glory  of  reflected  lights.  You  may 
doze  a  while  longer  by  snatches,  or  lie  awake 
to  study  the  charcoal  men  and  dogs  and 
horses  with  which  former  occupants  have 
defiled  the  partitions :  Thiers,  with  wily  pro- 
file; local  celebrities,  pipe  in  hand;  or,  may- 
be, a  romantic  landscape  splashed  in  oil. 
Meanwhile  artist  after  artist  drops  into  the 

101 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

salle-a-manger  for  coffee,  and  then  shoulders 
easel,  sunshade,  stool,  and  paint-box,  bound 
into  a  fagot,  and  sets  off  for  what  he  calls  his 
"motive."  And  artist  after  artist,  as  he  goes 
out  of  the  village,  carries  with  him  a  little  fol- 
lowing of  dogs.  For  the  dogs,  who  belong 
only  nominally  to  any  special  master,  hang 
about  the  gate  of  the  forest  all  day  long,  and 
whenever  any  one  goes  by  who  hits  their 
fancy,  profit  by  his  escort,  and  go  forth  with 
him  to  play  an  hour  or  two  at  hunting. They 
would  like  to  be  under  the  trees  all  day.  But 
they  cannot  go  alone.  They  require  a  pre- 
text. And  so  they  take  the  passing  artist  as 
an  excuse  to  go  into  the  woods,  as  they 
might  take  a  walking-stick  as  an  excuse  to 
bathe.  With  quick  ears,  long  spines,  and 
bandy  legs,  or  perhaps  as  tall  as  a  greyhound 
and  with  a  bulldog's  head,  this  company  of 
mongrels  will  trot  by  your  side  all  day  and 
come  home  with  you  at  night,  still  showing 
white  teeth  and  wagging  stunted  tail.  Their 
good  humour  is  not  to  be  exhausted.  You 
may  pelt  them  with  stones  if  you  please,  and 
all  they  will  do  is  to  give  you  a  wider  berth. 
If  once  they  come  out  with  you,  to  you  they 


FOREST  NOTES 

will  remain  faithful,  and  with  you  return ;  al- 
though if  you  meet  them  next  morning  in 
the  street,  it  is  as  like  as  not  they  will  cut 
you  with  a  countenance  of  brass. 

The  forest  —  a  strange  thing  for  an  Eng- 
lishman—  is  very  destitute  of  birds.  This  is 
no  country  where  every  patch  of  wood 
among  the  meadows  gives  up  an  incense  of 
song,  and  every  valley  wandered  through 
by  a  streamlet  rings  and  reverberates  from 
side  to  side  with  a  profusion  of  clear  notes. 
And  this  rarity  of  birds  is  not  to  be  regretted 
on  its  own  account  only.  For  the  inseds 
prosper  in  their  absence,  and  become  as  one 
of  the  plagues  of  Egypt.  Ants  swarm  in  the 
hot  sand ;  mosquitos  drone  their  nasaldrone ; 
wherever  the  sun  finds  a  hole  in  the  roof  of 
the  forest,  you  see  a  myriad  transparent 
creatures  coming  and  going  in  the  shaft  of 
light;  and  even  between-whiles,  even  where 
there  is  no  incursion  of  sun-rays  into  the 
dark  arcade  of  the  wood,  you  are  conscious 
of  a  continual  drift  of  insefts,  an  ebb  and 
flow  of  infinitesimal  living  things  between 
the  trees.  Nor  are  insefts  the  only  evil  crea- 
tures that  haunt  the  forest.  For  you  may 

103 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

plump  into  a  cave  among  the  rocks,  and  find 
yourself  face  to  face  with  a  wild  boar,  or  see 
a  crooked  viper  slither  across  the  road. 

Perhaps  you  may  set  yourself  down  in  the 
bay  between  two  spreading  beech-roots 
with  a  book  on  your  lap,  and  be  awakened 
all  of  a  sudden  by  a  friend:  "I  say,  just 
keep  where  you  are,  will  you?  You  make 
the  jolliest  motive."  And  you  reply:  "Well, 
I  don't  mind,  if  1  may  smoke."  And  there- 
after the  hours  go  idly  by.  Your  friend  at 
the  easel  labours  doggedly  a  little  way  off, 
in  the  wide  shadow  of  the  tree;  and  yet 
farther,  across  a  strait  of  glaring  sunshine, 
you  see  another  painter,  encamped  in  the 
shadow  of  another  tree,  and  up  to  his  waist 
in  the  fern.  You  cannot  watch  your  own 
effigy  growing  out  of  the  white  trunk,  and 
the  trunk  beginning  to  stand  forth  from  the 
rest  of  the  wood,  and  the  whole  pidure  get- 
ting dappled  over  with  the  flecks  of  sun  that 
slip  through  the  leaves  overhead,  and,  as  a 
wind  goes  by  and  sets  the  trees  a-talking, 
flicker  hither  and  thither  like  butterflies  of 
light.  But  you  know  it  is  going  forward; 
and,  out  of  emulation  with  the  painter,  get 
104 


FOREST  NOTES 

ready  your  own  palette,  and  lay  out  the  col- 
our for  a  woodland  scene  in  words. 

Your  tree  stands  in  a  hollow  paved  with 
fern  and  heather,  set  in  a  basin  of  low  hills, 
and  scattered  over  with  rocks  and  junipers. 
All  the  open  is  steeped  in  pitiless  sunlight. 
Everything  stands  out  as  though  it  were  cut 
in  cardboard,  every  colour  is  strained  into 
its  highest  key.  The  boulders  are  some  of 
them  upright  and  dead  like  monolithic  cas- 
tles, some  of  them  prone  like  sleeping  cattle. 
The  junipers  —  looking,  in  their  soiled  and 
ragged  mourning,  like  some  funeral  proces- 
sion that  has  gone  seeking  the  place  of  sep- 
ulchre three  hundred  years  and  more  in 
wind  and  rain  —  are  daubed  in  forcibly 
against  the  glowing  ferns  and  heather.  Every 
tassel  of  their  rusty  foliage  is  defined  with 
pre-RaphaeHte  minuteness.  And  a  sorry  fig- 
ure they  make  out  there  in  the  sun,  like  mis- 
begotten yew-trees!  The  scene  is  all  pitched 
in  a  key  of  colour  so  peculiar,  and  lit  up 
with  such  a  discharge  of  violent  sunlight, 
as  a  man  might  live  fifty  years  in  England 
and  not  see. 

Meanwhile  at  your  elbow  some  one  tunes 

105 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

up  a  song,  words  of  Ronsard  to  a  pathetic 
tremulous  air,  of  how  the  poet  loved  his 
mistress  long  ago,  and  pressed  on  her  the 
flight  of  time,  and  told  her  how  white  and 
quiet  the  dead  lay  under  the  stones,  and  how 
the  boat  dipped  and  pitched  as  the  shades 
embarked  for  the  passionless  land.  Yet  a 
little  while,  sang  the  poet,  and  there  shall 
be  no  more  love;  only  to  sit  and  remember 
loves  that  might  have  been.  There  is  a  fall- 
ing flourish  in  the  air  that  remains  in  the 
memory  and  comes  back  in  incongruous 
places,  on  the  seat  of  hansoms  or  in  the 
warm  bed  at  night,  with  something  of  a 
forest  savour. 

"  You  can  get  up  now,"  says  the  painter; 
"I'm  at  the  background." 

And  so  up  you  get,  stretching  yourself, 
and  go  your  way  into  the  wood,  the  daylight 
becoming  richer  and  more  golden,  and  the 
shadows  stretching  f^irther  into  the  open.  A 
cool  air  comes  along  the  highways,  and  the 
scents  awaken.  The  fir-trees  breathe  abroad 
their  ozone.  Out  of  unknown  thickets  comes 
forth  the  soft,  secret,  aromatic  odour  of  the 
woods,  not  like  a  smell  of  the  free  heaven, 


FOREST  NOTES 

but  as  though  court  ladies,  who  had  known 
these  paths  in  ages  long  gone  by,  still  walked 
in  the  summer  evenings,  and  shed  from  their 
brocades  a  breath  of  musk  or  bergamot  upon 
the  woodland  winds.  One  side  of  the  long 
avenues  is  still  kindled  with  the  sun,  the 
other  is  plunged  in  transparent  shadow. 
Over  the  trees  the  west  begins  to  burn  like  a 
furnace;  and  the  painters  gather  up  their 
chattels,  and  go  down,  by  avenue  or  foot- 
path, to  the  plain. 

^  PLEASURE  PARTY 

As  this  excursion  is  a  matter  of  some 
length,  and,  moreover,  we  go  in  force,  we 
have  set  aside  our  usual  vehicle,  the  pony- 
cart,  and  ordered  a  large  wagonette  from  Le- 
josne's.  It  has  been  waiting  for  near  an  hour, 
while  one  went  to  pack  a  knapsack,  and 
t'other  hurried  over  his  toilette  and  coffee; 
but  now  it  is  filled  from  end  to  end  with 
merry  folk  in  summer  attire,  the  coachman 
cracks  his  whip,  and  amid  much  applause 
from  round  the  inn  door  off  we  rattle  at  a 
spanking  trot.  The  way  lies  through  the  for- 
est, up  hill  and  down  dale,  and  by  beech  and 

107 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

pine  wood,  in  the  cheerful  morning  sun- 
shine. The  Enghsh  get  down  at  all  the  as- 
cents and  walk  on  ahead  for  exercise;  the 
French  are  mightily  entertained  at  this,  and 
keep  coyly  underneath  the  tilt.  As  we  go  we 
carry  with  us  a  pleasant  noise  of  laughter 
and  light  speech,  and  some  one  will  be  al- 
ways breaking  out  into  a  bar  or  two  of  opera 
boufife.  Before  we  get  to  the  Route  Ronde 
here  comes  Desprez,  the  colourman  from 
Fontainebleau,  trudging  across  on  his  week- 
ly peddle  with  a  case  of  merchandise;  and  it 
is  "Desprez,  leave  me  some  malachite 
green";  "Desprez,  leave  me  so  much  can- 
vas"; "  Desprez,  leave  me  this,  or  leave  me 
that  ";  M.  Desprez  standing  the  while  in  the 
sunlight  with  grave  face  and  many  saluta- 
tions. The  next  interruption  is  more  impor- 
tant. For  some  time  back  we  have  had  the 
sound  of  cannon  in  our  ears;  and  now,  a 
little  past  Franchard,  we  find  a  mounted 
trooper  holding  a  led  horse,  who  brings  the 
wagonette  to  a  stand.  The  artillery  is  praiftis- 
ing  in  the  Quadrilateral,  it  appears;  passage 
along  the  Route  Ronde  formally  interdi(fted 
for  the  moment.  There  is  nothing  for  it  but 
108 


FOREST  NOTES 

to  draw  up  at  the  glaring  cross-roads,  and 
get  down  to  make  fun  with  the  notorious 
Cocardon,  the  most  ungainly  and  ill-bred 
dog  of  all  the  ungainly  and  ill-bred  dogs  of 
Barbizon,  or  clamber  about  the  sandy  banks. 
And  meanwhile  the  Doftor,  with  sun  um- 
brella, wide  Panama,  and  patriarchal  beard, 
is  busy  wheedling  and  (for  aught  the  rest  of 
us  know)  bribing  the  too  facile  sentry.  His 
speech  is  smooth  and  dulcet,  his  manner 
dignified  and  insinuating.  It  is  not  for  noth- 
ing that  the  Doftor  has  voyaged  all  the  world 
over,  and  speaks  all  languages  from  French 
to  Patagonian.  He  has  not  come  home  from 
perilous  journeys  to  be  thwarted  by  a  cor- 
poral of  horse.  And  so  we  soon  see  the  sol- 
dier's mouth  relax,  and  his  shoulders  imitate 
a  relenting  heart.  "  £;/  voiture,  Messieurs, 
M&sdames,"  sings  the  Dodor;  and  on  we  go 
again  at  a  good  round  pace,  for  black  care  fol- 
lows hard  after  us,  and  discretion  prevails  not 
a  little  over  valour  in  some  timorous  spirits  of 
the  party.  At  any  moment  we  may  meet  the 
sergeant,  who  will  send  us  back.  At  any  mo- 
ment wemay  encounter  a  flyingshell,  which 
will  send  us  somewhere  farther  off  than  Grez. 

109 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Grez — for  that  is  our  destination  —  has 
been  highly  recommended  for  its  beauty. 
"  II y  a  de  reau,"  people  have  said,  with  an 
emphasis,  as  if  that  settled  the  question, 
which,  for  a  French  mind,  I  am  rather  led 
to  think  it  does.  And  Grez,  when  we  get 
there,  is  indeed  a  place  worthy  of  some 
praise.  It  lies  out  of  the  forest,  a  cluster  of 
houses,  with  an  old  bridge,  an  old  castle  in 
ruin,  and  a  quaint  old  church.  The  inn  gar- 
den descends  in  terraces  to  the  river;  stable- 
yard,  kailyard,  orchard,  and  a  space  of  lawn, 
fringed  with  rushes  and  embellished  with  a 
green  arbour.  On  the  opposite  bank  there  is 
a  reach  of  English-looking  plain,  set  thickly 
with  willows  and  poplars.  And  between  the 
two  lies  the  river,  clear  and  deep,  and  full  of 
reeds  and  floating  lilies.  Water-plants  cluster 
about  the  starlings  of  the  long  low  bridge, 
and  stand  half-way  up  upon  the  piers  in 
green  luxuriance.  They  catch  the  dipped  oar 
with  long  antennae,  and  chequer  the  slimy 
bottom  with  the  shadow  of  their  leaves.  And 
the  river  wanders  hither  and  thither  among 
the  islets,  and  is  smothered  and  broken  up 
by  the  reeds,  like  an  old  building  in  the 


FOREST  NOTES 

lithe,  hardy  arms  of  the  climbing  ivy.  You 
may  watch  the  box  where  the  good  man  of 
the  inn  keeps  fish  alive  for  his  i^itchen,  one 
oily  ripple  following  another  over  the  top  of 
the  yellow  deal.  And  you  can  hear  a  splash- 
ing and  a  prattle  of  voices  from  the  shed 
under  the  old  kirk,  where  the  village  women 
wash  and  wash  all  day  among  the  fish  and 
water-lilies.  It  seems  as  if  linen  washed  there 
should  be  specially  cool  and  sweet. 

We  have  come  here  for  the  river.  And  no 
sooner  have  we  all  bathed  than  we  board 
the  two  shallops  and  push  off  gaily,  and  go 
gliding  under  the  trees  and  gathering  a  great 
treasure  of  water-lilies.  Some  one  sings; 
some  trail  their  hands  in  the  cool  water; 
some  lean  over  the  gunwale  to  see  the  image 
of  the  tall  poplars  far  below,  and  the  shadow 
of  the  boat,  with  the  balanced  oars  and  their 
own  head  protruded,  glide  smoothly  over 
the  yellow  floor  of  the  stream.  At  last,  the 
day  declining  —  all  silent  and  happy,  and  up 
to  the  knees  in  the  wet  lilies  —  we  punt 
slowly  back  again  to  the  landing-place  be- 
side the  bridge.  There  is  a  wish  for  solitude 
on  all.  One  hides  himself  in  the  arbour  with 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

a  cigarette;  another  goes  a  walk  in  the 
country  with  Cocardon;  a  third  inspeds  the 
church.  And  it  is  not  till  dinner  is  on  the 
table,  and  the  inn's  best  wine  goes  round 
from  glass  to  glass,  that  we  begin  to  throw 
off  the  restraint  and  fuse  once  more  into  a 
jolly  fellowship. 

Half  the  party  are  to  return  to-night  with 
the  wagonette ;  and  some  of  the  others,  loath 
to  break  up  good  company,  will  go  with 
them  a  bit  of  the  way  and  drink  a  stirrup- 
cup  at  Marlotte.  It  is  dark  in  the  wagonette, 
and  not  so  merry  as  it  might  have  been.  The 
coachman  loses  the  road.  So-and-so  tries  to 
light  fireworks  with  the  most  indifferent 
success.  Some  sing,  but  the  rest  are  too 
weary  to  applaud;  and  it  seems  as  if  the 
festival  were  fairly  at  an  end  — 
"  Nous  avons  fait  la  noce, 
Rentrons  a  nos  foyers!  " 

And  such  is  the  burthen,  even  after  we  have 
come  to  Marlotte  and  taken  our  places  in  the 
court  at  Mother  Antonine's.  There  is  punch 
on  the  long  table  out  in  the  open  air,  where 
the  guests  dine  in  summer  weather.  The 
candles  flare  in  the  night  wind,  and  the  faces 


1 1 


FOREST  NOTES 

round  the  punch  are  Ht  up,  with  shifting 
emphasis,  against  a  background  of  complete 
and  soHd  darkness.  It  is  all  piduresque 
enough ;  but  the  fad  is,  we  are  aweary.  We 
yawn;  we  are  out  of  the  vein;  we  have 
made  the  wedding,  as  the  song  says,  and 
now,  for  pleasure's  sake,  let's  make  an  end 
on't.  When  here  comes  striding  into  the 
court,  booted  to  mid-thigh,  spurred  and 
splashed,  in  a  jacket  of  green  cord,  the  great, 
famous,  and  redoubtable  Blank;  and  in  a 
moment  the  fire  kindles  again,  and  the  night 
is  witness  of  our  laughter  as  he  imitates 
Spaniards,  Germans,  Englishmen,  pifture- 
dealers,  all  eccentric  ways  of  speaking  and 
thinking,  with  a  possession,  a  fury,  a  strain 
of  mind  and  voice,  that  would  rather  sug- 
gest a  nervous  crisis  than  a  desire  to  please. 
We  are  as  merry  as  ever  when  the  trap  sets 
forth  again,  and  say  farewell  noisily  to  all 
the  good  folk  going  farther.  Then,  as  we  are 
far  enough  from  thoughts  of  sleep,  we  visit 
Blank  in  his  quaint  house,  and  sit  an  hour 
or  so  in  a  great  tapestried  chamber,  laid  with 
furs,  littered  with  sleeping  hounds,  and  lit 
up,  in  fantastic  shadow  and  shine,  by  a 

II? 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

wood  fire  in  a  mediaeval  chimney.  And  then 
we  plod  back  through  the  darkness  to  the 
inn  beside  the  river. 

How  quick  bright  things  come  to  confu- 
sion! When  we  arise  next  morning,  the 
grey  showers  fall  steadily,  the  trees  hang 
limp,  and  the  face  of  the  stream  is  spoiled 
with  dimpling  raindrops.  Yesterday's  lilies 
encumber  the  garden  walk,  or  begin,  dis- 
mally enough,  their  voyage  towards  the 
Seine  and  the  salt  sea.  A  sickly  shimmer  lies 
upon  the  dripping  house-roofs,  and  all  the 
colour  is  washed  out  of  the  green  and  golden 
landscape  of  last  night,  as  though  an  envi- 
ous man  had  taken  a  water-colour  sketch 
and  blotted  it  together  with  a  sponge.  We 
go  out  a-walking  in  the  wet  roads.  But  the 
roads  about  Grez  have  a  trick  of  their  own. 
They  go  on  for  a  while  among  clumps  of 
willows  and  patches  of  vine,  and  then,  sud- 
denly and  without  any  warning,  cease  and 
determine  in  some  miry  hollow  or  upon 
some  bald  know;  and  you  have  a  short 
period  of  hope,  then  right-about  face,  and 
back  the  way  you  came!  So  we  draw  about 
the  kitchen  fire  and  play  a  round  game  of 
114 


FOREST  NOTES 

cards  for  ha'pence,  or  go  to  the  billiard-room 
for  a  match  at  corks;  and  by  one  consent 
a  messenger  is  sent  over  for  the  wagonette 
—  Grez  shall  be  left  to-morrow. 

To-morrow  dawns  so  fair  that  two  of  the 
party  agree  to  walk  back  for  exercise,  and 
let  their  knapsacks  follow  by  the  trap.  1 
need  hardly  say  they  are  neither  of  them 
French;  for,  of  all  English  phrases,  the 
phrase  "for  exercise"  is  the  least  compre- 
hensible across  the  Straits  of  Dover.  All 
goes  well  for  a  while  with  the  pedestrians. 
The  wet  woods  are  full  of  scents  in  the 
noontide.  At  a  certain  cross,  where  there  is 
a  guardhouse,  they  make  a  halt,  for  the  for- 
ester's wife  is  the  daughter  of  their  good 
host  at  Barbizon.  And  so  there  they  are  hos- 
pitably received  by  the  comely  woman, 
with  one  child  in  her  arms  and  another  prat- 
tling and  tottering  at  her  gown,  and  drink 
some  syrup  of  quince  in  the  back  parlour, 
with  a  map  of  the  forest  on  the  wall,  and 
some  prints  of  love-affairs  and  the  great 
Napoleon  hunting.  As  they  draw  near  the 
Quadrilateral,  and  hear  once  more  the  re- 
port of  the  big  guns,  they  take  a  by-road  to 

115 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

avoid  the  sentries,  and  go  on  a  while  some- 
what vaguely,  with  the  sound  of  the  cannon 
in  their  ears  and  the  rain  beginning  to  fall. 
The  ways  grow  wider  and  sandier;  here  and 
there  there  are  real  sand-hills,  as  though  by 
the  sea-shore;  the  fir-wood  is  open  and 
grows  in  clumps  upon  the  hillocks,  and  the 
race  of  sign-posts  is  no  more.  One  begins  to 
look  at  the  other  doubtfully.  "  1  am  sure  we 
should  keep  more  to  the  right, "  says  one ;  and 
the  other  is  just  as  certain  they  should  hold 
to  the  left.  And  now,  suddenly,  the  heavens 
open,  and  the  rain  falls  "sheer  and  strong 
and  loud,"  as  out  of  a  shower-bath.  In  a  mo- 
ment they  are  as  wet  as  shipwrecked  sailors. 
They  cannot  see  out  of  their  eyes  for  the  drift, 
and  the  water  churns  and  gurgles  in  their 
boots.  They  leave  the  track  and  try  across 
country  with  a  gambler's  desperation,  for  it 
seems  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  make  the 
situation  worse;  and,  for  the  next  hour,  go 
scrambling  from  boulder  to  boulder,  or  plod 
along  paths  that  are  now  no  more  than  rivu- 
lets, and  across  waste  clearings  where  the 
scattered  shells  and  broken  fir-trees  tell  all 
too  plainly  of  the  cannon  in  the  distance. 
ii6 


FOREST  NOTES 

And  meantime  the  cannon  grumble  out  re- 
sponses to  the  grumbhng  thunder.  There  is 
such  a  mixture  of  melodrama  and  sheer  dis- 
comfort about  all  this,  it  is  at  once  so  grey 
and  so  lurid,  that  it  is  far  more  agreeable  to 
read  and  write  about  by  the  chimney-corner 
than  to  suffer  in  the  person.  At  last  they 
chance  on  the  right  path,  and  make  Fran- 
chard  in  the  early  evening,  the  sorriest  pair 
of  wanderers  that  ever  welcomed  English 
ale. Thence,  by  the  Bois  d'Hyver,  the  Ventes- 
Alexandre,  and  the  Pins  Brules,  to  the  clean 
hostelry,  dry  clothes,  and  dinner. 

THE  WOODS  IN  SPRING 
I  think  you  will  like  the  forest  best  in  the 
sharp  early  springtime,  when  it  is  just  begin- 
ning to  reawaken,  and  innumerable  violets 
peep  from  among  the  fallen  leaves ;  when  two 
or  three  people  at  most  sit  down  to  dinner, 
and,  at  table,  you  will  do  well  to  keep  a  rug 
about  your  knees,  for  the  nights  are  chill,  and 
the  salle-a-manger  opens  on  the  court. There 
is  less  to  distraft  the  attention, for  one  thing, 
and  the  forest  is  more  itself.  It  is  not  be- 
dotted  with  artists'  sunshades  as  with  un- 

"7 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

known  mushrooms,  nor  bestrewn  with  the 
remains  of  EngHsh  picnics.  The  hunting  still 
goes  on,  and  at  any  moment  your  heart  may 
be  brought  into  your  mouth  as  you  hear  far- 
away horns;  or  you  may  be  told  by  an  agi- 
tated peasant  that  the  Vicomte  has  gone  up 
the  avenue,  not  ten  minutes  since,  "d  fond 
de  train,  monsieur,,  et  avec  doii{e p/giieiirs. 

If  you  go  up  to  some  coign  of  vantage  in 
the  system  of  low  hills  that  permeates  the 
forest,  you  will  see  many  different  trads  of 
country,  each  of  its  own  cold  and  melan- 
choly neutral  tint,  and  all  mixed  together 
and  mingled  the  one  into  the  other  at  the 
seams.  You  will  see  trads  of  leafless  beeches 
of  a  faint  yellowish  grey,  and  leafless  oaks  a 
little  ruddier  in  the  hue.  Then  zones  of  pine 
of  a  solemn  green;  and,  dotted  among  the 
pines,  or  standing  by  themselves  in  rocky 
clearings,  the  delicate,  snow-white  trunks 
of  birches,  spreading  out  into  snow-white 
branches  yet  more  delicate,  and  crowned 
and  canopied  with  a  purple  haze  of  twigs. 
And  then  a  long,  bare  ridge  of  tumbled 
boulders,  with  bright  sand-breaks  between 
them,  and  wavering  sandy  roads  among  the 
ii8 


FOREST  NOTES 

bracken  and  brown  heather.  It  is  all  rather 
cold  and  unhomely.  It  has  not  the  perfed 
beauty,  nor  the  gem-like  colouring,  of  the 
wood  in  the  later  year,  when  it  is  no  more 
than  one  vast  colonnade  of  verdant  shadow, 
tremulous  with  insefts,  intersefted  here  and 
there  by  lanes  of  sunlight  set  in  purple  heath- 
er. The  loveliness  of  the  woods  in  March  is 
not,  assuredly,  of  this  blowzy  rustic  type.  It 
is  made  sharp  with  a  grain  of  salt,  with  a 
touch  of  ugliness.  It  has  a  sting  like  the  sting 
of  bitter  ale;  you  acquire  the  love  of  it  as 
men  acquire  a  taste  for  olives.  And  the  won- 
derful clear,  pure  air  wells  into  your  lungs 
the  while  by  voluptuous  inhalations,  and 
makes  the  eyes  bright,  and  sets  the  heart 
tinkling  to  a  new  tune  —  or,  rather,  to  an  old 
tune;  for  you  remember  in  your  boyhood 
something  akin  to  this  spirit  of  adventure, 
this  thirst  for  exploration,  that  now  takes 
you  masterfully  by  the  hand,  plunges  you 
into  many  a  deep  grove,  and  drags  you  over 
many  a  stony  crest.  It  is  as  if  the  whole  wood 
were  full  of  friendly  voices  calling  you  farther 
in,  and  you  turn  from  one  side  to  another, 
like  Buridan's  donkey,  in  a  maze  of  pleasure. 

119 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Comely  beeches  send  up  their  white, 
straight,  clustered  branches,  barred  with 
green  moss,  like  so  many  fingers  from  a 
half-clenched  hand.  Mighty  oaks  stand  to 
the  ankles  in  a  fine  tracery  of  underwood; 
thence  the  tall  shaft  climbs  upwards,  and  the 
great  forest  of  stalwart  boughs  spreads  out 
into  the  golden  evening  sky,  where  the  rooks 
are  flying  and  calling.  On  the  sward  of  the 
Boisd'Hyver  the  firs  stand  well  asunder  with 
outspread  arms,  like  fencers  saluting;  and 
the  air  smells  of  resin  all  around,  and  the 
sound  of  the  axe  is  rarely  still.  But  strangest 
of  all,  and  in  appearance  oldest  of  all,  are 
the  dim  and  wizard  upland  districts  of  young 
wood.  Theground  is  carpeted  with  fir-tassel, 
and  strewn  with  fir-apples  and  fiakes  of  fall- 
en bark.  Rocks  lie  crouching  in  the  thicket, 
guttered  with  rain,  tufted  with  lichen,  white 
with  years  and  the  rigours  of  the  changeful 
seasons.  Brown  and  yellow  butterflies  are 
sown  and  carried  away  again  by  the  light 
air  —  like  thistledown.  The  loneliness  of 
these  coverts  is  so  excessive,  that  there  are 
moments  when  pleasure  draws  to  the  verge 
of  fear.  You  listen  and  listen  for  some  noise 
120 


FOREST  NOTES 

to  break  the  silence,  till  you  grow  half  mes- 
merised by  the  intensity  of  the  strain;  your 
sense  of  your  own  identity  is  troubled ;  your 
brain  reels,  like  that  of  some  gymnosophist 
poring  on  his  own  nose  in  Asiatic  jungles; 
and  should  you  see  your  own  outspread 
feet,  you  see  them,  not  as  anything  of  yours, 
but  as  a  feature  of  the  scene  around  you. 

Still  the  forest  is  always,  but  the  stillness 
is  not  always  unbroken.  You  can  hear  the 
wind  pass  in  the  distance  over  the  tree-tops; 
sometimes  briefly,  like  the  noise  of  a  train; 
sometimes  with  a  long  steady  rush,  like  the 
breaking  of  waves.  And  sometimes,  close  at 
hand,  the  branches  move,  a  moan  goes 
through  the  thicket,  and  the  wood  thrills  to 
its  heart.  Perhaps  you  may  hear  a  carriage 
on  the  road  to  Fontainebleau,  a  bird  gives  a 
dry  continual  chirp,  the  dead  leaves  rustle 
underfoot,  or  you  may  time  your  steps  to 
the  steady  recurrent  strokes  of  the  wood- 
man's axe.  From  time  to  time,  over  the  low 
grounds,  a  flight  of  rooks  goes  by ;  and  from 
time  to  time  the  cooing  of  wild  doves  falls 
upon  the  ear,  not  sweet  and  rich  and  near 
at  hand  as  in  England,  but  a  sort  of  voice  of 

121 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  woods,  thin  and  far  away,  as  fits  these 
solemn  places.  Or  you  hear  suddenly  the 
hollow,  eager,  violent  barking  of  dogs; 
scared  deer  flit  past  you  through  the  fringes 
of  the  wood;  then  a  man  or  two  running, 
in  green  blouse,  with  gun  and  game-bag  on 
a  bandoleer;  and  then,  out  of  the  thick  of 
the  trees,  comes  the  jar  of  rifle-shots.  Or 
perhaps  the  hounds  are  out,  and  horns  are 
blown,  and  scarlet-coated  huntsmen  flash 
through  the  clearings,  and  the  solid  noise  of 
horses  galloping  passes  below  you,  where 
you  sit  perched  among  the  rocks  and  heather. 
The  boar  is  afoot,  and  all  over  the  forest, 
and  in  all  neighbouring  villages,  there  is  a 
vague  excitement  and  a  vague  hope;  for 
who  knows  whither  the  chase  may  lead  ? 
and  even  to  have  seen  a  single  piqueur,  or 
spoken  to  a  single  sportsman,  is  to  be  a  man 
of  consequence  for  the  night. 

Besides  men  who  shoot  and  men  who 
ride  with  the  hounds,  there  are  few  people 
in  the  forest,  in  the  early  spring,  save  wood- 
cutters plying  their  axes  steadily,  and  old 
women  and  children  gathering  wood  for  the 
fire.  You  may  meet  such  a  party  coming 


FOREST  NOTES 
home  in  the  twihght:  the  old  woman  laden 
with  a  fagot  of  chips,  and  the  httle  ones 
hauHng  a  long  branch  behind  them  in  her 
wake.  That  is  the  worst  of  what  there  is  to 
encounter;  and  if  I  tell  you  of  what  once 
happened  to  a  friend  of  mine,  it  is  by  no 
means  to  tantalise  you  with  false  hopes;  for 
the  adventure  was  unique.  It  was  on  a  very 
cold,  still,  sunless  morning,  with  a  flat  grey 
sky  and  a  frosty  tingle  in  the  air,  that  this 
friend  (who  shall  here  be  nameless)  heard 
the  notes  of  a  key-bugle  played  with  much 
hesitation,  and  saw  the  smoke  of  a  fire 
spread  out  along  the  green  pine-tops,  in  a 
remote  uncanny  glen,  hard  by  a  hill  of 
naked  boulders.  He  drew  near  warily,  and 
beheld  a  picnic  party  seated  under  a  tree  in 
an  open.  The  old  father  knitted  a  sock,  the 
mother  sat  staring  at  the  fire.  The  eldest 
son,  in  the  uniform  of  a  private  of  dragoons, 
was  choosing  out  notes  on  a  key-bugle. 
Two  or  three  daughters  lay  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood picking  violets.  And  the  whole 
party  as  grave  and  silent  as  the  woods 
around  them!  My  friend  watched  for  a  long 
time,  he  says;  but  all  held  their  peace;  not 

123 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

one  spoke  or  smiled;  only  the  dragoon  kept 
choosing  out  single  notes  upon  the  bugle, 
and  the  flithcr  knitted  away  at  his  work  and 
made  strange  movements  the  while  with 
his  flexible  eyebrows.  They  took  no  notice 
whatever  of  my  friend's  presence,  which 
was  disquieting  in  itself,  and  increased  the 
resemblance  of  the  whole  party  to  mechani- 
cal waxworks.  Certainly,  he  affirms,  a  wax 
figure  might  have  played  the  bugle  with 
more  spirit'than  that  strange  dragoon.  And 
as  this  hypothesis  of  his  became  more  cer- 
tain, the  awful  insolubility  of  why  they 
should  be  left  out  there  in  the  woods  with 
nobody  to  wind  them  up  again  when  they 
ran  down,  and  a  growing  disquietude  as  to 
what  might  happen  next,  became  too  much 
for  his  courage,  and  he  turned  tail,  and  fairly 
took  to  his  heels.  It  might  have  been  a  sing- 
ing in  his  ears,  but  he  fancies  he  was  fol- 
lowed as  he  ran  by  a  peal  of  Titanic  laugh- 
ter. Nothing  has  ever  transpired  to  clear  up 
the  mystery;  it  maybe  they  were  automata; 
or  it  may  be  (and  this  is  the  theory  to  which 
1  lean  myself)  that  this  is  all  another  chap- 
ter of  Heine's  "  Gods  in  Exile  " ;  that  the  up- 
124 


FOREST  NOTES 

right  old  man  with  the  eyebrows  was  no 
other  than  Father  Jove,  and  the  young  dra- 
goon with  the  taste  for  music  either  Apollo 
or  Mars. 

MORALITY 

Strange  indeed  is  the  attradion  of  the  for- 
est for  the  minds  of  men.  Not  one  or  two 
only,  but  a  great  chorus  of  grateful  voices 
have  arisen  to  spread  abroad  its  fame.  Half 
the  famous  writers  of  modern  France  have 
had  their  word  to  say  about  Fontainebleau. 
Chateaubriand,  Michelet,  Beranger,  George 
Sand,  de  Senancour,  Flaubert,  Murger,  the 
brothers  Goncourt,  Theodore  de  Banville, 
each  of  these  hasdone  something  to  the  eter- 
nal praise  and  memory  of  these  woods. 
Even  at  the  very  worst  of  times,  even  when 
the  picturesque  was  anathema  in  the  eyes  of 
all  Persons  of  Taste,  the  forest  still  preserved 
a  certain  reputation  for  beauty.  It  was  in 
1730  that  the  Abbe  Guilbert  published  his 
Historical  Description  of  the  Palace,  Town, 
and  Forest  of  Fontainebleau.  And  very  droll 
it  is  to  see  him,  as  he  tries  to  set  forth  his  ad- 
miration in  terms  of  what  was  then  permis- 
sible. The  monstrous  rocks,  etc.,  says  the 

125 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Abbe  "  sont  admirees  avec  surprise  des  voy- 
ageurs  qui  s'ecrient  aussitot  avec  Horace:  Ut 
mihi  devio  rupes  et  vacuum  nemus  mirari 
libet."  The  good  man  is  not  exadly  lyrical  in 
his  praise ;  and  you  see  how  he  sets  his  back 
against  Horace  as  against  a  trusty  oak.  Hor- 
ace, at  any  rate,  was  classical.  For  the  rest, 
however,  the  Abbe  likes  places  where  many 
alleys  meet;  or  which,  like  the  Belle-Etoile, 
are  kept  up  "by  a  special  gardener,"  and 
admires  at  the  Table  du  Roi  the  labours  of 
the  Grand  Master  of  Woods  and  Waters,  the 
Sieur  de  la  Falure,  "qui  a  fait  faire  ce  magni- 
fique  endroit." 

But  indeed,  it  is  not  so  much  for  its  beauty 
that  the  forest  makes  a  claim  upon  men's 
hearts,  as  for  that  subtle  something,  that 
quality  of  the  air,  that  emanation  from  the 
old  trees,  that  so  wonderfully  changes  and 
renews  a  weary  spirit.  Disappointed  men, 
sick  Francis  Firsts  and  vanquished  Grand 
Monarchs,  time  out  of  mind  have  come  here 
for  consolation.  Hither  perplexed  folk  have 
retired  out  of  the  press  of  life,  as  into  a  deep 
bay-window  on  some  night  of  masquerade, 
and  here  found  quiet  and  silence,  and  rest, 
126 


FOREST  NOTES 

the  mother  of  wisdom.  It  is  the  great  moral 
spa;  this  forest  without  a  fountain  is  itself 
the  great  fountain  of  Juventius.  It  is  the  best 
place  in  the  world  to  bring  an  old  sorrow 
that  has  been  a  long  while  your  friend  and 
enemy;  and  if,  like  Beranger's,  your  gaiety 
has  run  away  from  home  and  left  open  the 
door  for  sorrow  to  come  in,  of  all  covers  in 
Europe,  it  is  here  you  may  expeft  to  find  the 
truant  hid.  With  every  hour  you  change. 
The  air  penetrates  through  your  clothes, 
and  nestles  to  your  Hving  body.  You  love 
exercise  and  slumber,  long  fasting  and  full 
meals.  You  forget  all  your  scruples  and  live 
a  while  in  peace  and  freedom,  and  for  the 
moment  only.  For  here,  all  is  absent  that  can 
stimulate  to  moral  feeling.  Such  people  as 
you  see  may  be  old,  or  toil-worn,  or  sorry; 
but  you  see  them  framed  in  the  forest,  like 
figures  on  a  painted  canvas;  and  for  you, 
they  are  not  people  in  any  Hving  and  kindly 
sense.  You  forget  the  grim  contrariety  of 
interests.  You  forget  the  narrow  lane  where 
all  men  jostle  together  in  unchivalrous  con- 
tention, and  the  kennel,  deep  and  unclean, 
that  gapes  on  either  hand  for  the  defeated. 

127 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Life  is  simple  enough,  it  seems,  and  the  very 
idea  of  sacrifice  becomes  like  a  mad  fancy 
out  of  a  last  night's  dream. 

Your  ideal  is  not  perhaps  high,  but  it  is 
plain  and  possible.  You  become  enamoured 
of  a  life  of  change  and  movement  and  the 
open  air,  where  the  muscles  shall  be  more 
exercised  than  the  affedions.  When  you 
have  had  your  will  of  the  forest,  you  may 
visit  the  whole  round  world.  You  may 
buckle  on  your  knapsack  and  take  the  road 
on  foot.  You  may  bestride  a  good  nag,  and 
ride  forth,  with  a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  into 
the  enchanted  East.  You  may  cross  the  Black 
Forest,  and  see  Germany  wide-spread  before 
you,  like  a  map,  dotted  with  old  cities, 
walled  and  spired,  that  dream  all  day  on 
their  own  reflections  in  the  Rhine  or  Dan- 
ube. You  may  pass  the  spinal  cord  of  Europe 
and  go  down  from  Alpine  glaciers  to  where 
Italy  extends  her  marble  moles  and  glasses 
her  marble  palaces  in  the  midland  sea.  You 
may  sleep  in  flying  trains  or  wayside  tav- 
erns. You  may  be  awakened  at  dawn  by  the 
scream  of  the  express  or  the  small  pipe  of  the 
robin  in  the  hedge.  For  you  the  rain  should 
128 


FOREST  NOTES 

allay  the  dust  of  the  beaten  road;  the  wind 
dry  your  clothes  upon  you  as  you  walked. 
Autumn  should  hang  out  russet  pears  and 
purple  grapes  along  the  lane;  inn  after  inn 
proffer  you  their  cups  of  raw  wine ;  river  by 
river  receive  your  body  in  the  sultry  noon. 
Wherever  you  went  warm  valleys  and  high 
trees  and  pleasant  villages  should  compass 
you  about;  and  light  fellowships  should  take 
you  by  the  arm,  and  walk  with  you  an  hour 
upon  your  way.  You  may  see  from  afar  off 
what  it  will  come  to  in  the  end  —  the 
weather-beaten  red-nosed  vagabond,  con- 
sumed by  a  fever  of  the  feet,  cut  off  from  all 
near  touch  of  human  sympathy,  a  waif,  an 
Ishmael,  and  an  outcast.  And  yet  it  will  seem 
well — and  yet,  in  the  air  of  the  forest,  this 
will  seem  the  best — to  break  all  the  network 
bound  about  your  feet  by  birth  and  old  com- 
panionship and  loyal  love,  and  bear  your 
shovelful  of  phosphates  to  and  fro,  in  town 
and  country,  until  the  hour  of  the  great  dis- 
solvent. 

Or,  perhaps,  you  will  keep  to  the  cover. 
For  the  forest  is  by  itself,  and  forest  life 
owns  small  kinship  with  life  in  the  dismal 

129 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

land  of  labour.  Men  are  so  far  sophisticated 
that  they  cannot  take  the  world  as  it  is  given 
to  them  by  the  sight  of  their  eyes.  Not  only 
what  they  see  and  hear,  but  what  they  know 
to  be  behind,  enter  into  their  notion  of  a 
place.  If  the  sea,  for  instance,  lie  just  across 
the  hills,  sea-thoughts  will  come  to  them  at 
intervals,  and  the  tenor  of  their  dreams  from 
time  to  time  will  suffer  a  sea-change.  And 
so  here,  in  this  forest,  a  knowledge  of  its 
greatness  is  for  much  in  the  effeft  produced. 
You  reckon  up  the  miles  that  lie  between 
you  and  intrusion.  You  may  walk  before  you 
all  day  long,  and  not  fear  to  touch  the  bar- 
rier of  your  Eden,  or  stumble  out  of  fairyland 
into  the  land  of  gin  and  steam-hammers. 
And  there  is  an  old  tale  enhances  for  the 
imagination  the  grandeur  of  the  woods  of 
France,  and  secures  you  in  the  thought  of 
your  seclusion.  When  Charles  VI.  hunted 
in  the  time  of  his  wild  boyhood  near  Senlis, 
there  was  captured  an  old  stag,  having  a 
collar  of  bronze  about  his  neck,  and  these 
words  engraved  on  the  collar:  "Caesar  mihi 
hoc  donavit."  It  is  no  wonder  if  the  minds 
of  men  were  moved  at  this  occurrence  and 
no 


FOREST  NOTES 

they  stood  aghast  to  find  themselves  thus 
touching  hands  with  forgotten  ages,  and  fol- 
lowing an  antiquity  with  hound  and  horn. 
And  even  for  you,  it  is  scarcely  in  an  idle 
curiosity  that  you  ponder  how  many  cen- 
turies this  stag  had  carried  its  free  antlers 
through  the  wood,  and  how  many  summers 
and  winters  had  shone  and  snowed  on  the 
imperial  badge.  If  the  extent  of  solemn 
wood  could  thus  safeguard  a  tall  stag  from 
the  hunters'  hounds  and  horses,  might  not 
you  also  play  hide-and-seek,  in  these  groves, 
with  all  the  pangs  and  trepidations  of  man's 
life,  and  elude  Death,  the  mighty  hunter,  for 
more  than  the  span  of  human  years.?  Here, 
also,  crash  his  arrows;  here,  in  the  farthest 
glade,  sounds  the  gallop  of  the  pale  horse. 
But  he  does  not  hunt  this  cover  with  all  his 
hounds,  for  the  game  is  thin  and  small:  and 
if  you  were  but  alert  and  wary,  if  you  lodged 
ever  in  the  deepest  thickets,  you  too  might 
live  on  into  later  generations  and  astonish 
men  by  your  stalwart  age  and  the  trophies 
of  an  immemorial  success. 

For  the  forest  takes  away  from  you  all  ex- 
cuse to  die.  There  is  nothing  here  to  cabin 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

or  thwart  your  free  desires.  Here  all  the  im- 
pudencies  of  the  brawling  world  reach  you 
no  more.  You  may  count  your  hours,  like 
Endymion,  by  the  strokes  of  the  lone  wood- 
cutter, or  by  the  progression  of  the  lights 
and  shadows  and  the  sun  wheeling  his 
wide  circuit  through  the  naked  heavens. 
Here  shall  you  see  no  enemies  but  winter 
and  rough  weather.  And  if  a  pang  comes  to 
you  at  all,  it  will  be  a  pang  of  healthful  hun- 
ger. All  the  puling  sorrows,  all  the  carking 
repentance,  all  this  talk  of  duty  that  is  no 
duty,  in  the  great  peace,  in  the  pure  day- 
light of  these  woods,  fall  away  from  you 
like  a  garment.  And  if  perchance  you  come 
forth  upon  an  eminence,  where  the  wind 
blows  upon  you  large  and  fresh,  and  the 
pines  knock  their  long  stems  together,  like 
an  ungainly  sort  of  puppets,  and  see  far 
away  over  the  plain  a  fadory  chimney  de- 
fined against  the  pale  horizon  —  it  is  for  you, 
as  for  the  staid  and  simple  peasant  when, 
with  his  plough,  he  upturns  old  arms  and 
harness  from  the  furrow  of  the  glebe.  Ay, 
sure  enough,  there  was  a  battle  there  in  the 
old  times ;  and,  sure  enough,  there  is  a  world 
132 


FOREST  NOTES 

out  yonder  where  men  strive  together  with 
a  noise  of  oaths  and  weeping  and  clamorous 
dispute.  So  much  you  apprehend  by  an  ath- 
letic a(ft  of  the  imagination.  A  faint  far-oflf 
rumour  as  of  Merovingian  wars;  a  legend  as 
of  some  dead  religion. 


133 


VI 

A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN  IN 
FRANCE' 

A  Fragment,  '^79 

Originally  intended  to  serve  as  the  opening  chapter  of 
"  Travels  with  a  Douhey  in  the  Cevennes." 

^E  MONASTIER  is  the  chief  place  of 
a  hilly  canton  in  Haute  Loire,  the 
ancient  Velay.  As  the  name  betok- 
ens, the  town  is  of  monastic  origin;  and  it 
still  contains  a  towered  bulk  of  monastery 
and  a  church  of  some  architedural  preten- 
sions, the  seat  of  an  archpriest  and  several 
vicars.  It  stands  on  the  side  of  a  hill  above 
the  river  Gazeille,  about  fifteen  miles  from 
Le  Puy,  up  a  steep  road  where  the  wolves 
sometimes  pursue  the  diligence  in  winter. 
The  road,  which  is  bound  for  Vivarais, 
passes  through  the  town  from  end  to  end 
in  a  single  narrow  street;  there  you  may  see 
the  fountain  where  women  fill  their  pitch- 

*  Reprinted  by  permission  of  John  Lane. 
134 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

ers,  there  also  some  old  houses  with  carved 
doors  and  pediments  and  ornamental  work 
in  iron.  For  Monastier,  like  Maybole  in  Ayr- 
shire, was  a  sort  of  country  capital,  where 
the  local  aristocracy  had  their  town  mansions 
for  the  winter;  and  there  is  a  certain  baron 
still  alive  and,  I  am  told,  extremely  penitent, 
who  found  means  to  ruin  himself  by  high 
living  in  this  village  on  the  hills.  He  certainly 
has  claims  to  be  considered  the  most  re- 
markable spendthrift  on  record.  How  he  set 
about  it,  in  a  place  where  there  are  no  lux- 
uries for  sale,  and  where  the  board  at  the 
best  inn  comes  to  little  more  than  a  shilling 
a  day,  is  a  problem  for  the  wise.  His  son, 
ruined  as  the  f^imily  was,  went  as  far  as 
Paris  to  sow  his  wild  oats;  and  so  the  cases 
of  fiither  and  son  mark  an  epoch  in  the  his- 
tory of  centralisation  in  France.  Not  until 
the  latter  had  got  into  the  train  was  the 
work  of  Richelieu  complete. 

it  is  a  people  of  lace-makers.  The  women 
sit  in  the  streets  by  groups  of  five  or  six; 
and  the  noise  of  the  bobbins  is  audible  from 
one  group  to  another.  Now  and  then  you 
will  hear  one  woman  clattering  off  prayers 

'35 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

for  the  edification  of  the  others  at  their 
work.  They  wear  gaudy  shawls,  white  caps 
with  a  gay  ribbon  about  the  head,  and  some- 
times a  bhick  felt  brigand  hat  above  the  cap; 
and  so  they  give  the  street  colour  and  bright- 
ness and  a  foreign  air.  A  while  ago,  when 
England  largely  supplied  herself  from  this 
distrid  with  the  lace  called  torchon,  it  was 
not  unusual  to  earn  Wwq  francs  a  day;  and 
five  francs  in  Monastier  is  worth  a  pound  in 
London.  Now,  from  a  change  in  the  mar- 
ket, it  takes  a  clever  and  industrious  work- 
woman to  earn  from  three  to  four  in  the 
week,  or  less  than  an  eighth  of  what  she 
made  easily  a  few  years  ago.  The  tide  of 
prosperity  came  and  went,  as  with  our 
northern  pitmen,  and  left  nobody  the  richer. 
The  women  bravely  squandered  their  gains, 
kept  the  men  in  idleness,  and  gave  them- 
selves up,  as  I  was  told,  to  sweethearting 
and  a  merry  life.  From  week's  end  to  week's 
end  it  was  one  continuous  gala  in  Monastier; 
people  spent  the  day  in  the  wine-shops,  and 
the  drum  or  the  bagpipes  led  on  the  bonr- 
re'cs  up  to  ten  at  night.  Now  these  dancing 
days  are  over.  '"//  ny  a  p/iLS  de  jeunesse," 
n6 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

said  Viftor  the  gar(;on.  I  hear  of  no  great 
advance  in  what  are  thought  the  essentials 
of  morality;  but  the  boiirree,  with  its  ram- 
bling, sweet,  interminable  music,  and  alert 
and  rustic  figures,  has  fallen  into  disuse, 
and  is  mostly  remembered  as  a  custom  of 
the  past.  Only  on  the  occasion  of  the  fair 
shall  you  hear  a  drum  discreetly  rattling  in 
a  wine-shop  or  perhaps  one  of  the  company 
singing  the  measure  while  the  others  dance. 
I  am  sorry  at  the  change,  and  marvel  once 
more  at  the  complicated  scheme  of  things 
upon  this  earth,  and  how  a  turn  of  fashion 
in  England  can  silence  so  much  mountain 
merriment  in  France.  The  lace-makers  them- 
selves have  not  entirely  forgiven  our  coun- 
trywomen; and  1  think  they  take  a  special 
pleasure  in  the  legend  of  the  northern 
quarter  of  the  town,  called  L'Anglade,  be- 
cause there  the  English  free-lances  were  ar- 
rested and  driven  back  by  the  potency  of  a 
little  Virgin  Mary  on  the  wall. 

From  time  to  time  a  market  is  held,  and 
the  town  has  a  season  of  revival;  cattle  and 
pigs  are  stabled  in  the  streets;  and  pick- 
pockets have  been  known  to  come  all  the 

'37 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

way  from  Lyons  for  the  occasion.  Every 
Sunday  the  country  folk  throng  in  with  day- 
light to  buy  apples,  to  attend  mass,  and  to 
visit  one  of  the  wine-shops,  of  which  there 
are  no  fewer  than  fifty  in  this  little  town. 
Sunday  wear  for  the  men  is  a  green  tailcoat 
of  some  coarse  sort  of  drugget,  and  usually 
a  complete  suit  to  match.  I  have  never  set 
eyes  on  such  degrading  raiment.  Here  it 
clings,  there  bulges;  and  the  human  body, 
with  its  agreeable  and  lively  lines,  is  turned 
into  a  mockery  and  laughing-stock.  Another 
piece  of  Sunday  business  with  the  peasants 
is  to  take  their  ailments  to  the  chemist  for 
advice.  It  is  as  much  a  matter  for  Sunday  as 
church-going.  1  have  seen  a  woman  who 
had  been  unable  to  speak  since  the  Monday 
before,  wheezing,  catching  her  breath,  end- 
lessly and  painfully  coughing;  and  yet  she 
had  waited  upwards  of  a  hundred  hours  be- 
fore coming  to  seek  help,  and  had  the  week 
been  twice  as  long,  she  would  have  waited 
still.  There  was  a  canonical  day  for  consulta- 
tion; such  was  the  ancestral  habit,  to  which 
a  respedable  lady  must  study  to  conform. 
Two  conveyances  go  daily  to  Le  Puy, 
138 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

but  they  rival  each  other  in  polite  conces- 
sions rather  than  in  speed.  Each  will  wait  an 
hour  or  two  hours  cheerfully  while  an  old 
lady  does  her  marketing  or  a  gentleman 
finishes  the  papers  in  a  cafe.  The  Courrier 
(such  is  the  name  of  one)  should  leave  Le 
Puy  by  two  in  the  afternoon  on  the  return 
voyage,  and  arrive  at  Monastier  in  good  time 
for  a  six-o'clock  dinner.  But  the  driver  dares 
not  disoblige  his  customers.  He  will  post- 
pone his  departure  again  and  again,  hour 
after  hour;  and  I  have  known  the  sun  to  go 
down  on  his  delay.  These  purely  personal 
favours,  this  consideration  of  men's  fancies, 
rather  than  the  hands  of  a  mechanical  clock, 
as  marking  the  advance  of  the  abstradion, 
time,  mak"".  a  more  humorous  business  of 
stage-coaching  than  we  are  used  to  see  it. 
As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  one  swelling 
line  of  hill  top  rises  and  falls  behind  another; 
and  if  you  climb  an  eminence,  it  is  only  to 
see  new  and  farther  ranges  behind  these. 
Many  little  rivers  run  from  all  sides  in  cliffy 
valleys;  and  one  of  them,  a  few  miles  from 
Monastier,  bears  the  great  name  of  Loire. 
The  mean  level  of  the  country  is  a  little 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

more  than  three  thousand  feet  above  the  sea, 
which  makes  the  atmosphere  proportion- 
ally brisk  and  wholesome. There  is  little  tim- 
ber except  pines,  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
country  lies  in  moorland  pasture.  The  coun- 
try is  wild  and  tumbled  rather  than  com- 
manding; an  upland  rather  than  a  mountain 
district ;  and  the  most  striking  as  well  as  the 
most  agreeable  scenery  lies  low  beside  the 
rivers.  There,  indeed,  you  will  find  many 
corners  that  take  the  fancy;  such  as  made 
the  English  noble  choose  his  grave  by  a 
Swiss  streamlet,  where  nature  is  at  her 
freshest,  and  looks  as  young  as  on  the 
seventh  morning.  Such  a  place  is  the  course 
of  the  Gazeille,  where  it  waters  the  common 
of  Monastier  and  thence  downwards  till  it 
joins  the  Loire ;  a  place  to  hear  birds  singing ; 
a  place  for  lovers  to  frequent.  The  name  of 
the  river  was  perhaps  suggested  by  the 
sound  of  its  passage  over  the  stones;  for  it 
is  a  great  warbler,  and  at  night,  after  I  was 
in  bed  at  Monastier,  1  could  hear  it  go  sing- 
ing down  the  valley  till  I  fell  asleep. 

On  the  whole,  this  is  a  Scottish  land- 
scape, although  not  so  noble  as  the  best  in 
140 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

Scotland;  and  by  an  odd  coincidence,  the 
population  is,  in  its  way,  as  Scottish  as  the 
country.  They  have  abrupt,  uncouth,  Fife- 
shire  manners,  and  accost  you,  as  if  you 
were  trespassing,  with  an  "Ou'st-ce  que 
vous  allei  ?  ' '  only  translatable  into  the  Low- 
land "Whaur  ye  gaun?"  They  keep  the  Scot- 
tish Sabbath.  There  is  no  labour  done  on  that 
day  but  to  drive  in  and  out  the  various  pigs 
and  sheep  and  cattle  that  make  so  pleasant 
a  tinkling  in  the  meadows.  The  lace-makers 
have  disappeared  from  the  street.  Not  to  at- 
tend mass  would  involve  social  degradation ; 
and  you  may  find  people  reading  Sunday 
books,  in  particular  a  sort  of  Catholic  Month- 
ly Visitor  on  the  doings  of  Our  Lady  of 
Lourdes.  1  remember  one  Sunday,  when  1 
was  walking  in  the  country,  that  1  fell  on  a 
hamlet  and  found  all  the  inhabitants,  from 
the  patriarch  to  the  baby,  gathered  in  the 
shadow  of  a  gable  at  prayer.  One  strapping 
lass  stood  with  her  back  to  the  wall  and  did 
the  solo  part,  the  rest  chiming  in  devoutly. 
Not  far  off,  a  lad  lay  flat  on  his  face  asleep 
among  some  straw,  to  represent  the  worldly 
element. 

141 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Again,  this  people  is  eager  to  proselytise; 
and  the  postmaster's  daughter  used  to  argue 
with  me  by  the  half-hour  about  my  heresy, 
until  she  grew  quite  Hushed.  1  have  heard 
the  reverse  process  going  on  between  a 
Scotswoman  and  a  French  girl;  and  the  ar- 
guments in  the  two  cases  were  identical. 
Each  apostle  based  her  claim  on  the  superior 
virtue  and  attainments  of  her  clergy,  and 
clenched  the  business  with  a  threat  of  hell- 
fire.  " PlU  bong prctres  ici, ' '  said  the  Presby- 
terian, "  bong  pretrcs  en  Ecosse."  And  the 
postmaster's  daughter,  taking  up  the  same 
weapon,  plied  me,  so  to  speak,  with  the 
butt  of  it  instead  of  the  bayonet.  We  are  a 
hopeful  race,  it  seems,  and  easily  persuaded 
for  our  good.  One  cheerful  circumstance  1 
note  in  these  guerilla  missions,  that  each 
side  relies  on  hell,  and  Protestant  and  Catho- 
lic alike  address  themselves  to  a  supposed 
misgiving  in  their  adversary's  heart.  And  I 
call  it  cheerful,  for  faith  is  a  more  support- 
ing quality  than  imagination. 

Here,  as  in  Scotland,  many  peasant  fami- 
lies boast  a  son  in  holy  orders.  And  here 
also,  the  young  men  have  a  tendency  to 
142 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

emigrate.  It  is  certainly  not  poverty  that 
drives  them  to  the  great  cities  or  across  the 
seas,  for  many  peasant  families,  I  was  told, 
have  a  fortune  of  at  least  40.000  francs.  The 
lads  go  forth  pricked  with  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture and  the  desire  to  rise  in  life,  and 
leave  their  homespun  elders  grumbling  and 
wondering  over  the  event.  Once,  at  a  village 
called  Laussonne,  1  met  one  of  these  disap- 
pointed parents:  a  drake  who  had  fathered  a 
wild  swan  and  seen  it  take  wing  and  disap- 
pear. The  wild  swan  in  question  was  now 
an  apothecary  in  Brazil.  He  had  flown  by 
way  of  Bordeaux,  and  first  landed  in  Amer- 
ica, bareheaded  and  barefoot,  and  with  a 
single  halfpenny  in  his  pocket.  And  now  he 
was  an  apothecary!  Such  a  wonderful  thing 
is  an  adventurous  life !  1  thought  he  might  as 
well  have  stayed  at  home;  but  you  never 
can  tell  wherein  a  man's  life  consists,  nor  in 
what  he  sets  his  pleasure:  one  to  drink,  an- 
other to  marry,  a  third  to  write  scurrilous 
articles  and  be  repeatedly  caned  in  public, 
and  now  this  fourth,  perhaps,  to  be  an 
apothecary  in  Brazil.  As  for  his  old  father, 
he  could  conceive  no  reason  for  the  lad's 

14; 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

behaviour.  "I  had  always  bread  for  him," 
he  said;  "he  ran  away  to  annoy  me.  He 
loved  to  annoy  me.  He  had  no  gratitude." 
But  at  heart  he  was  swelling  with  pride 
over  his  travelled  offspring,  and  he  produced 
a  letter  out  of  his  pocket,  where,  as  he  said, 
it  was  rotting,  a  mere  lump  of  paper  rags, 
and  waved  it  gloriously  in  the  air.  "This 
comes  from  America,"  he  cried,  "six  thou- 
sand leagues  away!"  And  the  wine-shop 
audience  looked  upon  it  with  a  certain  thrill. 
1  soon  became  a  popular  figure,  and  was 
known  for  miles  in  the  country.  Ou'st-ce 
que  vous  aUe{?  was  changed  for  me  into 
Qtioi,voiis  rentrei  an  Monastier  ce  soir?  and 
in  the  town  itself  every  urchin  seemed  to 
know  my  name,  although  no  living  creature 
could  pronounce  it.  There  was  one  particu- 
lar group  of  lace-makers  who  brought  out  a 
chair  for  me  whenever  I  went  by,  and  de- 
tained me  from  my  walk  to  gossip.  They 
were  filled  with  curiosity  about  England,  its 
language,  its  religion,  the  dress  of  the  wo- 
men, and  were  never  weary  of  seeing  the 
Queen's  head  on  English  postage-stamps  or 
seeking  for  French  words  in  English  Jour- 
144 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

nals.  The  language,  in  particular,  filled  them 
with  surprise. 

"Do  they  speak/)t7/o/'sin  England?"  I  was 
once  asked ;  and  when  I  told  them  not,  "Ah, 
then,  French?"  said  they. 

"No,  no,"  I  said,  "not  French." 

' '  Then, "  they  concluded, ' '  they  speak  pa- 
tois." 

You  must  obviously  either  speak  French 
or  patois.  Talk  of  the  force  of  logic  —  here  it 
was  in  all  its  weakness.  I  gave  up  the  point, 
but  proceeding  to  give  illustrations  of  my 
native  jargon,  I  was  met  with  a  new  morti- 
fication. Of  all /)t7/o/s  they  declared  that  mine 
was  the  most  preposterous  and  the  most 
jocose  in  sound.  At  each  new  word  there 
was  a  new  explosion  of  laughter,  and  some 
of  the  younger  ones  were  glad  to  rise  from 
their  chairs  and  stamp  about  the  street  in 
ecstasy;  and  I  looked  on  upon  their  mirth  in 
a  faint  and  slightly  disagreeable  bewilder- 
ment. "Bread,"  which  sounds  a  common- 
place, plain-sailing  monosyllable  in  England, 
was  the  word  that  most  delighted  these  good 
ladies  of  Monastier;  it  seemed  to  them  frolic- 
some and  racy,  like  a  page  of  Pickwick;  and 

•45 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

they  all  got  it  carefully  by  heart,  as  a  stand- 
by, I  presume,  for  winter  evenings.  I  have 
tried  it  since  then  with  every  sort  of  accent 
and  inflection,  but  1  seem  to  lack  the  sense 
of  humour. 

They  were  of  all  ages:  children  at  their 
first  web  of  lace,  a  stripling  girl  with  a  bash- 
ful but  encouraging  play  of  eyes,  solid  mar- 
ried women,  and  grandmothers,  some  on 
the  top  of  their  age  and  some  falling  towards 
decrepitude.  One  and  all  were  pleasant  and 
natural,  ready  to  laugh  and  ready  with  a  cer- 
tain quiet  solemnity  when  that  was  called 
for  by  the  subjed  of  our  talk.  Life,  since  the 
fall  in  wages,  had  begun  to  appear  to  them 
with  a  more  serious  air.  The  stripling  girl 
would  sometimes  laugh  at  me  in  a  provoca- 
tive and  not  unadmiring  manner,  if  1  judge 
aright;  and  one  of  the  grandmothers,  who 
was  my  great  friend  of  the  party,  gave  me 
many  a  sharp  word  of  judgment  on  my 
sketches,  my  heresy,  or  even  my  arguments, 
and  gave  them  with  a  wry  mouth  and  a  hu- 
morous twinkle  in  her  eye  that  were  emi- 
nently Scottish.  But  the  rest  used  me  with  a 
certain  reverence,  as  something  come  from 
146 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

afar  and  not  entirely  human.  Nothing  would 
put  them  at  their  ease  but  the  irresistible 
gaiety  of  my  native  tongue.  Between  the  old 
lady  and  myself  I  think  there  was  a  real  at- 
tachment. She  was  never  weary  of  sitting 
to  me  for  her  portrait,  in  her  best  cap  and 
brigand  hat,  and  with  all  her  wrinkles  tidily 
composed,  and  though  she  never  failed  to 
repudiate  the  result,  she  would  always  insist 
upon  another  trial.  It  was  as  good  as  a  play 
to  see  her  sitting  in  judgment  over  the  last. 
" No,  no,"  she  would  say,  "that  is  not  it.  I 
am  old,  to  be  sure,  but  1  am  better-looking 
than  that.  We  must  try  again."  When  I  was 
about  to  leave  she  bade  me  good-bye  for  this 
life  in  a  somewhat  touching  manner.  We 
should  not  meet  again,  she  said;  it  was  a 
long  farewell,  and  she  was  sorry.  But  life  is 
so  full  of  crooks,  old  lady,  that  who  knows  .^ 
1  have  said  good-bye  to  people  for  greater 
distances  and  times,  and,  please  God,  I  mean 
to  see  them  yet  again. 

One  thing  was  notable  about  these  wo- 
men, from  the  youngest  to  the  oldest,  and 
with  hardly  an  exception.  In  spite  of  their 
piety,  they  could  twang  off  an  oath  with  Sir 

■47 


£SSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Toby  Belch  in  person.  There  was  nothing  so 
high  or  so  low,  in  heaven  or  earth  or  in  the 
human  body,  buta  woman  of  this  neighbour- 
hood would  whip  out  the  name  of  it,  fair  and 
square,  by  way  of  conversational  adornment. 
My  landlady,  who  was  pretty  and  young, 
dressed  like  a  lady  and  avoided  patois  like  a 
weakness,  commonly  addressed  her  child  in 
the  languag£  of  a  drunken  bully.  And  of  all 
the  swearers  that  1  ever  heard,  commend  me 
to  an  old  lady  in  Gondet,  a  village  of  the 
Loire.  1  was  making  a  sketch,  and  her  curse 
was  not  yet  ended  when  I  had  finished  it  and 
took  my  departure.  It  is  true  she  had  a  right 
to  be  angry;  for  here  was  her  son,  a  hulking 
fellow,  visibly  the  worse  for  drink  before  the 
day  was  well  begun.  But  it  was  strange  to 
hear  her  unwearying  flow  of  oaths  and  ob- 
scenities, endless  like  a  river,  and  now  and 
then  rising  to  a  passionate  shrillness,  in  the 
clear  and  silent  air  of  the  morning.  In  city 
slums,  the  thing  might  have  passed  un- 
noticed; but  in  a  country  valley,  and  from  a 
plain  and  honest  countrywoman,  this  beast- 
liness of  speech  surprised  the  ear. 

The  Condu^or,  as  he  is  called   of  Roads 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

and  Bridges  was  my  principal  companion. 
He  was  generally  intelligent,  and  could  have 
spoken  more  or  less  falsetto  on  any  of  the 
trite  topics;  but  it  was  his  specialty  to  have 
a  generous  taste  in  eating.  This  was  what 
was  most  indigenous  in  the  man;  it  was 
here  he  was  an  artist;  and  1  found  in  his 
company  what  1  had  long  suspected,  that 
enthusiasm  and  special  knowledge  are  the 
great  social  qualities,  and  what  they  are 
about,  whether  white  sauce  or  Shakespeare's 
plays,  an  altogether  secondary  question. 

1  used  to  accompany  the  Conductor  on 
his  professional  rounds,  and  grew  to  believe 
myself  an  expert  in  the  business.  I  thought 
I  could  make  an  entry  in  a  stone-breaker's 
time-book,  or  order  manure  off  the  way- 
side with  any  living  engineer  in  France. 
Gondet  was  one  of  the  places  we  visited  to- 
gether; and  Laussonne,  where  1  met  the 
apothecary's  father,  was  another.  There,  at 
Laussonne,  George  Sand  spent  a  day  while 
she  was  gathering  materials  for  the  Marquis 
de  yUlemer;  and  I  have  spoken  with  an  old 
man,  who  was  then  a  child  running  about 
the  inn  kitchen,  and  who  still  remembers 

149 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 
her  with  a  sort  of  reverence.  It  appears  that 
he  spoke  French  imperfedly ;  for  this  reason 
George  Sand  chose  him  for  companion,  and 
whenever  he  let  slip  a  broad  and  piduresque 
phrase  \n  patois,  she  would  make  him  repeat 
it  again  and  again  till  it  was  graven  in  her 
memory.  The  word  for  a  frog  particularly 
pleased  her  fancy;  and  it  would  be  curious 
to  know  if  she  afterwards  employed  it  in  her 
works.  The  peasants,  who  knew  nothing  of 
letters  and  had  never  so  much  as  heard  of 
local  colour,  could  not  explain  her  chatter- 
ing with  this  backward  child;  and  to  them 
she  seemed  a  very  homely  lady  and  far  from 
beautiful:  the  most  famous  man-killer  of  the 
age  appealed  so  little  to  Velaisian  swine- 
herds! 

On  my  first  engineering  excursion,  which 
lay  up  by  Crouzials  towards  Mount  Mezenc 
and  the  borders  of  Ardeche,  1  began  an  im- 
proving acquaintance  with  the  foreman  road- 
mender.  He  was  in  great  glee  at  having  me 
with  him,  passed  me  off  among  his  subal- 
terns as  the  supervising  engineer,  and  in- 
sisted on  what  he  called  "the  gallantry  "  of 
paying  for  my  breakfost  in  a  roadside  wine- 


ISO 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

shop.  Ovi  the  whole,  he  was  a  man  of  great 
weather-wisdom,  some  spirits,  and  a  social 
temper.  But  I  am  afraid  he  was  superstitious. 
When  he  was  nine  years  old,  he  had  seen 
one  night  a  company  of  bourgeois  et  dames 
qui faisaient  la  manege  avec  des  chaises,  and 
concluded  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a 
witches'  Sabbath.  1  suppose,  but  venture 
with  timidity  on  the  suggestion,  that  this 
may  have  been  a  romantic  and  nodurnal 
picnic  party.  Again,  coming  from  Pradelles 
with  his  brother,  they  saw  a  great  empty 
cart  drawn  by  six  enormous  horses  before 
them  on  the  road.  The  driver  cried  aloud 
and  filled  the  mountains  with  the  cracking 
of  his  whip.  He  never  seemed  to  go  faster 
than  a  walk,  yet  it  was  impossible  to  over- 
take him;  and  at  length,  at  the  corner  of  a 
hill,  the  whole  equipage  disappeared  bodily 
into  the  night.  At  the  time,  people  said  it 
was  the  devil  qui  s'amusait  a  f aire  (a. 

I  suggested  there  was  nothing  more  like- 
ly, as  he  must  have  some  amusement. 

The  foreman  said  it  was  odd,  but  there 
was  less  of  that  sort  of  thing  than  formerly. 
* ' C'est difficile, ' '  he  added,  "a  expliquer. 

151 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

When  we  were  well  up  on  the  moors  and 
the  Conductor  was  trying  some  road-metal 
with  the  gauge  — 

"Hark!  "  said  the  foreman,  "do  you  hear 
nothing?" 

We  listened,  and  the  wind,  which  was 
blowing  chilly  out  of  the  east,  brought  a 
faint,  tangled  jangling  to  our  ears. 

"It  is  the  flocks  of  Vivarais,"  said  he. 

For  every  summer,  the  flocks  out  of  all 
Ardeche  are  brought  up  to  pasture  on  these 
grassy  plateaux. 

Here  and  there  a  little  private  flock  was 
being  tended  by  a  girl,  one  spinning  with 
a  distaff,  another  seated  on  a  wall  and  in- 
tently making  lace.  This  last,  when  we  ad- 
dressed her,  leaped  up  in  a  panic  and  put 
out  her  arms,  like  a  person  swimming,  to 
keep  us  at  a  distance,  and  it  was  some  sec- 
onds before  we  could  persuade  her  of  the 
honesty  of  our  intentions. 

The  Coiidifcfor  told  me  of  another  herds- 
woman  from  whom  he  had  once  asked  his 
road  while  he  was  yet  new  to  the  country, 
and  who  fled  from  him,  driving  her  beasts 
before  her,  until  he  had  given  up  the  infor- 
152 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN 

mation  in  despair.  A  tale  of  old  lawlessness 
may  yet  be  read  in  these  uncouth  timidities. 
The  winter  in  these  uplands  is  a  danger- 
ous and  melancholy  time.  Houses  are  snowed 
up,  and  wayfarers  lost  in  a  flurry  within  hail 
of  their  own  fireside.  No  man  ventures  abroad 
without  meat  and  a  bottle  of  wine,  which 
he  replenishes  at  every  wine-shop ;  and  even 
thus  equipped  he  takes  the  road  with  terror. 
All  day  the  family  sits  about  the  fire  in  a 
foul  and  airless  hovel,  and  equally  without 
work  or  diversion.  The  father  may  carve  a 
rude  piece  of  furniture,  but  that  is  all  that 
will  be  dene  until  the  spring  sets  in  again, 
and  along  with  it  the  labours  of  the  field. 
It  is  not  for  nothing  that  you  find  a  clock  in 
the  meanest  of  these  mountain  habitations. 
A  clock  and  an  almanac,  you  would  fancy, 
were  indispensable  in  such  a  life.  .  .  . 


>5? 


LITERARY  PAPERS 


I 

THE  MORALITY  OF  THE 
PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS' 

JHE  profession  of  letters  has  been 
lately  debated  in  the  public  prints; 
and  it  has  been  debated,  to  put  the 
matter  mildly,  from  a  point  of  view  that  was 
calculated  to  surprise  high-minded  men,  and 
bring  a  general  contempt  on  books  and  read- 
ing. Some  time  ago,  in  particular,  a  lively, 
pleasant,  popular  writer^  devoted  an  essay, 
lively  and  pleasant  like  himself,  to  a  very  en- 
couraging view  of  the  profession.  We  may 
be  glad  that  his  experience  is  so  cheering, 
and  we  may  hope  that  all  others,  who  de- 
serve it,  shall  be  as  handsomely  rewarded; 
but  I  do  not  think  we  need  be  at  all  glad  to 
have  this  question,  so  important  to  the 
public  and  ourselves,  debated  solely  on  the 

'  First  published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  April, 
1881. 

^  Mr.  James  Payn. 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ground  of  money.  The  salary  in  any  business 
under  heaven  is  not  the  only,  nor  indeed  the 
first,  question.  That  you  should  continue  to 
exist  is  a  matter  for  your  own  consideration ; 
but  that  your  business  should  be  first  honest, 
and  second  useful,  are  points  in  which  hon- 
our and  morality  are  concerned.  If  the  writer 
to  whom  1  refer  succeeds  in  persuading  a 
number  of  young  persons  to  adopt  this  way 
of  life  with  an  eye  set  singly  on  the  liveli- 
hood, we  must  exped  them  in  their  works 
to  follow  profit  only,  and  we  must  exped  in 
consequence,  if  he  will  pardon  me  the  epi- 
thets, a  slovenly,  base,  untrue,  and  empty 
literature.  Of  that  writer  himself  1  am  not 
speaking:  he  is  diligent,  clean,  and  pleasing; 
we  all  owe  him  periods  of  entertainment, 
and  he  has  achieved  an  amiable  popularity 
which  he  has  adequately  deserved.  But  the 
truth  is,  he  does  not,  or  did  not  when  he 
first  embraced  it,  regard  his  profession  from 
this  purely  mercenary  side.  He  went  into  it, 
1  shall  venture  to  say,  if  not  with  any  noble 
design,  at  least  in  the  ardour  of  a  first  love; 
and  he  enjoyed  its  practice  long  before  he 
paused  to  calculate  the  wage.  The  other  day 
158 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

an  author  was  complimented  on  a  piece  of 
work,  good  in  itself  and  exceptionally  good 
for  him,  and  replied,  in  terms  unworthy  of 
a  commercial  traveller,  that  as  the  book  was 
not  briskly  selling  he  did  not  give  a  copper 
farthing  for  its  merit.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  the  person  to  whom  this  answer 
was  addressed  received  it  as  a  profession  of 
faith;  he  knew,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it 
was  only  a  whiff  of  irritation;  just  as  we 
know,  when  a  respedable  writer  talks  of 
literature  as  a  way  of  life,  like  shoemaking, 
but  not  so  useful,  that  he  is  only  debating 
one  aspect  of  a  question,  and  is  still  clearly 
conscious  of  a  dozen  others  more  important 
in  themselves  and  more  central  to  the  matter 
in  hand.  But  while  those  who  treat  literature 
in  this  penny-wise  and  virtue-foolish  spirit 
are  themselves  truly  in  possession  of  a  better 
light,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  treatment  is 
decent  or  improving,  whether  for  themselves 
or  others.  To  treat  all  subjects  in  the  high- 
est, the  most  honourable,  and  the  pluckiest 
spirit,  consistent  with  the  faft,  is  the  first 
duty  of  a  writer.  If  he  be  well  paid,  as  I  am 
glad  to  hear  he  is    this  duty  becomes  the 

•59 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

more  urgent,  the  negled  of  it  the  more  dis- 
graceful. And  perhaps  there  is  no  subject  on 
which  a  man  should  speak  so  gravely  as  that 
industry,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  is  the 
occupation  or  delight  of  his  life ;  which  is  his 
tool  to  earn  or  serve  with;  and  which,  if  it 
be  unworthy,  stamps  himself  as  a  mere  in- 
cubus of  dumb  and  greedy  bowels  on  the 
shoulders  of  labouring  humanity.  On  that 
subject  alone  even  to  force  the  note  might 
lean  to  virtue's  side.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a 
numerous  and  enterprising  generation  of 
writers  will  follow  and  surpass  the  present 
one;  but  it  would  be  better  if  the  stream 
were  stayed,  and  the  roll  of  our  old,  honest 
English  books  were  closed,  than  that  esuri- 
ent book-makers  should  continue  and  de- 
base a  brave  tradition,  and  lower,  in  their 
own  eyes,  a  famous  race.  Better  that  our 
serene  temples  were  deserted  than  filled 
with  trafficking  and  juggling  priests. 

There  are  two  just  reasons  for  the  choice 
of  any  way  of  life:  the  first  is  inbred  taste  in 
the  chooser;  the  second  some  high  utility 
in  the  industry  seleded.  Literature,  like  any 
other  art,  is  singularly  interesting  to  the  ar- 
i6o 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

tist ;  and,  in  a  degree  peculiar  to  itself  among 
the  arts,  it  is  useful  to  mankind.  These  are 
the  sufficient  justifications  for  any  young 
man  or  woman  who  adopts  it  as  the  busi- 
ness of  his  life.  1  shall  not  say  much  about 
the  wages.  A  writer  can  live  by  his  writ- 
ing. If  not  so  luxuriously  as  by  other  trades, 
then  less  luxuriously.  The  nature  of  the 
work  he  does  all  day  will  more  aflfed  his 
happiness  than  the  quality  of  his  dinner  at 
night.  Whatever  be  your  calling,  and  how- 
ever much  it  brings  you  in  the  year,  you 
could  still,  you  know,  get  more  by  cheating. 
We  all  suffer  ourselves  to  be  too  much  con- 
cerned about  a  little  poverty;  but  such  con- 
siderations should  not  move  us  in  the  choice 
of  that  which  is  to  be  the  business  and  jus- 
tification of  so  great  a  portion  of  our  lives ; 
and  like  the  missionary,  the  patriot,  or  the 
philosopher,  we  should  all  choose  that  poor 
and  brave  career  in  which  we  can  do  the 
most  and  best  for  mankind.  Now  nature, 
faithfully  followed,  proves  herself  a  careful 
mother.  A  lad,  for  some  liking  to  the  jingle 
of  words,  betakes  himself  to  letters  for  his 
life;  by-and-by,  when  he  learns  more  grav- 

i6i 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ity,  he  finds  that  he  has  chosen  better  than 
he  knew ;  that  if  he  earns  little,  he  is  earning 
it  amply ;  that  if  he  receives  a  small  wage,  he 
is  in  a  position  to  do  considerable  services; 
that  it  is  in  his  power,  in  some  small  meas- 
ure, to  proted:  the  oppressed  and  to  defend 
the  truth.  So  kindly  is  the  world  arranged, 
such  great  profit  may  arise  from  a  small  de- 
gree of  human  reliance  on  oneself,  and  such, 
in  particular,  is  the  happy  star  of  this  trade 
of  writing,  that  it  should  combine  pleasure 
and  profit  to  both  parties,  and  be  at  once 
agreeable,  like  fiddling,  and  useful,  like  good 
preaching. 

This  is  to  speak  of  literature  at  its  high- 
est; and  with  the  four  great  elders  who  are 
still  spared  to  our  respeft  and  admiration, 
with  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  Browning,  and  Ten- 
nyson before  us,  it  would  be  cowardly  to 
consider  it  at  first  in  any  lesser  aspect.  But 
while  we  cannot  follow  these  athletes, 
while  we  may  none  of  us,  perhaps,  be  very 
vigorous,  very  original,  or  very  wise,  1  still 
contend  that,  in  the  humblest  sort  of  liter- 
ary work,  we  have  it  in  our  power  either  to 
do  great  harm  or  great  good.  We  may  seek 
162 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

merely  to  please;  we  may  seek,  having  no 
higher  gift,  merely  to  gratify  the  idle  nine 
days'  curiosity  of  our  contemporaries ;  or  we 
may  essay,  however  feebly,  to  instruct.  In 
each  of  these  we  shall  have  to  deal  with  that 
remarkable  art  of  words  which,  because  it 
is  the  dialed  of  life,  comes  home  so  easily 
and  powerfully  to  the  minds  of  men;  and 
since  that  is  so,  we  contribute,  in  each  of 
these  branches,  to  build  up  the  sum  of  senti- 
ments and  appreciations  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  Public  Opinion  or  Public  Feeling. 
The  total  of  a  nation's  reading,  in  these  days 
of  daily  papers,  greatly  modifies  the  total 
of  the  nation's  speech;  and  the  speech  and 
reading,  taken  together,  form  the  efficient 
educational  medium  of  youth.  A  good  man 
or  woman  may  keep  a  youth  some  little 
while  in  clearer  air;  but  the  contemporary 
atmosphere  is  all-powerful  in  the  end  on  the 
average  of  mediocre  characters.  The  copious 
Corinthian  baseness  of  the  American  re- 
porter or  the  Parisian  chroniquear^  both  so 
lightly  readable,  must  exercise  an  incalcula- 
ble influence  for  ill ;  they  touch  upon  all  sub- 
jects, and  on  all  with  the  same  ungenerous 

163 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

hand;  they  begin  the  consideration  of  all,  in 
young  and  unprepared  minds,  in  an  un- 
worthy spirit;  on  all,  they  supply  some 
pungency  for  dull  people  to  quote.  The  mere 
body  of  this  ugly  matter  overwhelms  the 
rare  utterances  of  good  men;  the  sneering, 
the  selhsh,  and  the  cowardly  are  scattered 
in  broad  sheets  on  every  table,  while  the 
antidote,  in  small  volumes,  lies  unread  up- 
on the  shelf.  1  have  spoken  of  the  American 
and  the  French,  not  because  they  are  so 
much  baser,  but  so  much  more  readable, 
than  the  English;  their  evil  is  done  more 
effeflively,  in  America  for  the  masses,  in 
French  for  the  few  that  care  to  read;  but 
with  us  as  with  them,  the  duties  of  litera- 
ture are  daily  negleded,  truth  daily  per- 
verted and  suppressed,  and  grave  subjects 
daily  degraded  in  the  treatment.  The  jour- 
nalist is  not  reckoned  an  important  officer; 
yet  judge  of  the  good  he  might  do,  the  harm 
he  does;  judge  of  it  by  one  instance  only: 
that  when  we  find  two  journals  on  the  re- 
verse sides  of  politics  each,  on  the  same  day, 
openly  garbling  a  piece  of  news  for  the  in- 
terest of  its  own  party,  we  smile  at  the  dis- 
164 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

covery  (no  discovery  now!)  as  over  a  good 
joke  and  pardonable  stratagem.  Lying  so 
open  is  scarce  lying,  it  is  true;  but  one  of 
the  things  that  we  profess  to  teach  our  young 
is  a  respeft  for  truth ;  and  I  cannot  think  this 
piece  of  education  will  be  crowned  with  any 
great  success,  so  long  as  some  of  us  pradise 
and  the  rest  openly  approve  of  public  false- 
hood. 

There  are  two  duties  incumbent  upon  any 
man  who  enters  on  the  business  of  writing: 
truth  to  the  fad  and  a  good  spirit  in  the 
treatment.  In  every  department  of  literature, 
though  so  low  as  hardly  to  deserve  the  name, 
truth  to  the  fad  is  of  importance  to  the  edu- 
cation and  comfort  of  mankind,  and  so  hard 
to  preserve,  that  the  faithful  trying  to  do  so 
will  lend  some  dignity  to  the  man  who 
tries  it.  Our  judgments  are  based  upon  two 
things:  first,  upon  the  original  preferences 
of  our  soul;  but,  second,  upon  the  mass  of 
testimony  to  the  nature  of  God,  man,  and 
the  universe  which  reaches  us,  in  divers 
manners,  from  without.  For  the  most  part 
these  divers  manners  are  reducible  to  one, 
all  that  we  learn  of  past  times  and  much  that 

165 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

we  learn  of  our  own  reaching  us  through 
the  medium  of  books  or  papers,  and  even 
he  who  cannot  read  learning  from  the  same 
source  at  second-hand  and  by  the  report  of 
him  who  can.  Thus  the  sum  of  the  con- 
temporary knowledge  or  ignorance  of  good 
and  evil  is,  in  large  measure,  the  handiwork 
of  those  who  write.  Those  who  write  have 
to  see  that  each  man's  knowledge  is,  as  near 
as  they  can  make  it,  answerable  to  the  fafts 
of  life;  that  he  shall  not  suppose  himself  an 
angel  or  a  monster;  nor  take  this  world  for 
a  hell;  nor  be  suffered  to  imagine  that  all 
rights  are  concentred  in  his  own  caste  or 
country,  or  all  veracities  in  his  own  paro- 
chial creed.  Each  man  should  learn  what  is 
within  him,  that  he  may  strive  to  mend; 
he  must  be  taught  what  is  without  him, 
that  he  may  be  kind  to  others.  It  can  never 
be  wrong  to  tell  him  the  truth;  for,  in  his 
disputable  state,  weaving  as  he  goes  his 
theory  of  life  steering  himself,  cheering 
or  reproving  others,  all  fads  are  of  the  first 
importance  to  his  condu(5l;  and  even  if  a 
fa(ft  shall  discourage  or  corrupt  him,  it  is 
still  best  that  he  should  know  it;  for  it  is  in 

1 66 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

this  world  as  it  is,  and  not  in  a  world  made 
easy  by  educational  suppressions,  that  he 
must  win  his  way  to  shame  or  glory.  In  one 
word,  it  must  always  be  foul  to  tell  what  is 
false;  and  it  can  never  be  safe  to  suppress 
what  is  true.  The  very  faft  that  you  omit 
may  be  the  faft  which  somebody  was  want- 
ing, for  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison,  and  I  have  known  a  person  who 
was  cheered  by  the  perusal  of  Candide. 
Every  faft  is  a  part  of  that  great  puzzle  we 
must  set  together;  and  none  that  comes 
direftly  in  a  writer's  path  but  has  some  nice 
relations,  unperceivable  by  him,  to  the  to- 
tality and  bearing  of  the  subject  under  hand. 
Yet  there  are  certain  classes  of  fad  eternally 
more  necessary  than  others,  and  it  is  with 
these  that  literature  must  first  bestir  itself. 
They  are  not  hard  to  distinguish,  nature 
once  more  easily  leading  us;  for  the  neces- 
sary, because  the  efficacious,  fa(fts  are  those 
which  are  most  interesting  to  the  natural 
mind  of  man.  Those  which  are  coloured, 
pi(5turesque,  human,  and  rooted  in  morality, 
and  those,  on  the  other  hand,  which  are 
clear,  indisputable,  and  a  part  of  science,  are 

167 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

alone  vital  in  importance,  seizing  by  their 
interest,  or  useful  to  communicate.  So  far  as 
the  writer  merely  narrates,  he  should  princi- 
pally tell  of  these.  He  should  tell  of  the  kind 
and  wholesome  and  beautiful  elements  of 
our  life;  he  should  tell  unsparingly  of  the 
evil  and  sorrow  of  the  present,  to  move  us 
with  instances;  he  should  tell  of  wise  and 
good  people  in  the  past,  to  excite  us  by  ex- 
ample; and  of  these  he  should  tell  soberly 
and  truthfully,  not  glossing  faults,  that  we 
may  neither  grow  discouraged  with  our- 
selves nor  exading  to  our  neighbours.  So 
thebodyof  contemporary  literature,  ephem- 
eral and  feeble  in  itself,  touches  in  the 
minds  of  men  the  springs  of  thought  and 
kindness,  and  supports  them(for  those  who 
will  go  at  all  are  easily  supported)  on  their 
way  to  what  is  true  and  right.  And  if,  in  any 
degree,  it  does  so  now,  how  much  more 
might  it  do  so  if  the  writers  chose !  There  is 
not  a  life  in  all  the  records  of  the  past  but, 
properly  studied,  might  lend  a  hint  and  a 
help  to  some  contemporary.  There  is  not  a 
junfture  in  to-day's  affairs  but  some  useful 
word  may  yet  be  said  of  it.  Even  the  reporter 
168 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

has  an  office,  and,  with  clear  eyes  and  honest 
language,  may  unveil  injustices  and  point 
the  way  to  progress.  And  for  a  last  word :  in 
all  narration  there  is  only  one  way  to  be 
clever,  and  that  is  to  be  exacft.  To  be  vivid  is 
a  secondary  quality  which  must  presuppose 
the  first;  for  vividly  to  convey  a  wrong  im- 
pression is  only  to  make  failure  conspicu- 
ous. 

But  a  fa(ff  maybe  viewed  on  many  sides;  it 
may  be  chronicled  with  rage,  tears,  laughter, 
indifference,  or  admiration,  and  by  each  of 
these  the  story  will  be  transformed  to  some- 
thing else.  The  newspapers  that  told  of  the 
return  of  our  representatives  from  Berlin, 
even  if  they  had  not  differed  as  to  the  fads, 
would  have  sufficiently  differed  by  their 
spirits;  so  that  the  one  description  would 
have  been  a  second  ovation,  and  the  other  a 
prolonged  insult.  The  subje(5t  makes  but  a 
trifling  part  of  any  piece  of  literature,  and  the 
view  of  the  writer  is  itself  a  faft  more  impor- 
tant because  less  disputable  than  the  others. 
Now  this  spirit  in  which  a  subjed  is  re- 
garded, important  in  all  kinds  of  literary 
work,  becomes  all-important  in  works  of 

169 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

fidion,  meditation,  or  rhapsody;  for  there  it 
not  only  colours  but  itself  chooses  the  fads ; 
not  only  modifies  but  shapes  the  work.  And 
hence,  over  the  far  larger  proportion  of  the 
field  of  literature,  the  health  or  disease  of  the 
writer's  mind  or  momentary  humour  forms 
not  only  the  leading  feature  of  his  work,  but 
is,  at  bottom,  the  only  thing  he  can  commu- 
nicate to  others.  In  all  works  of  art,  widely 
speaking,  it  is  first  of  all  the  author's  attitude 
that  is  narrated,  though  in  the  attitude  there 
be  implied  a  whole  experience  and  a  theory 
of  life.  An  author  who  has  begged  the  ques- 
tion and  reposes  in  some  narrow  faith  can- 
not, if  he  would,  express  the  whole  or  even 
many  of  the  sides  of  this  various  existence; 
for,  his  own  life  being  maim,  some  of  them 
are  not  admitted  in  his  theory,  and  were 
only  dimly  and  unwillingly  recognised  in  his 
experience.  Hence  the  smallness,  the  trite- 
ness, and  the  inhumanity  in  works  of  merely 
sectarian  religion;  and  hence  we  find  equal 
although  unsimilar  limitation  in  works  in- 
spired by  the  spirit  of  the  flesh  or  the  despi- 
cable taste  for  high  society.  So  that  the  first 
duty  of  any  man  who  is  to  write  is  intellec- 
170 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

tual.  Designedly  or  not,  he  has  so  far  set  him- 
self up  for  a  leader  of  the  minds  of  men ;  and 
he  must  see  that  his  own  mind  is  kept  supple, 
charitable,  and  bright.  Everything  but  preju- 
dice should  find  a  voice  through  him;  he 
should  see  the  good  in  all  things;  where  he 
has  even  a  fear  that  he  does  not  wholly  un- 
derstand, there  he  should  be  wholly  silent; 
and  he  should  recognise  from  the  first  that 
he  has  only  one  tool  in  his  workshop,  and 
that  tool  is  sympathy.' 

The  second  duty,  far  harder  to  define,  is 
moral.  There  are  a  thousand  different  hu- 
mours in  the  mind,  and  about  each  of  them, 
when  it  is  uppermost,  some  literature  tends 
to  be  deposited.  Is  this  to  be  allowed  ?  Not 
certainly  in  every  case,  and  yet  perhaps  in 
more  than  rigourists  would  fancy.  It  were 
to  be  desired  that  all  literary  work,  and 
chiefly  works  of  art,  issued  from  sound,  hu- 

*  A  footnote,  at  least,  is  due  to  the  admirable  example 
set  before  all  young  writers  in  the  width  of  literary  sym- 
pathy displayed  by  Mr.  Swinburne.  He  runs  forth  to  wel- 
come merit,  whether  in  Dickens  or  Trollope,  whether  in 
Villon,  Milton,  or  Pope.  This  is,  in  criticism,  the  attitude 
we  should  all  seek  to  preserve,  not  only  in  that,  but  in 
every  branch  of  literary  work. 

171 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

man,  healthy,  and  potent  impulses,  whether 
grave  or  laughing,  humorous,  romantic,  or 
religious.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  some 
valuable  books  are  partially  insane;  some, 
mostly  religious,  partially  inhuman;  and 
very  many  tainted  with  morbidity  and  im- 
potence. We  do  not  loathe  a  masterpiece 
although  we  gird  against  its  blemishes.  We 
are  not,  above  all,  to  look  for  faults,  but 
merits.  There  is  no  book  perfed,  even  in 
design ;  but  there  are  many  that  will  delight, 
improve,  or  encourage  the  reader.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  Hebrew  psalms  are  the  only 
religious  poetry  on  earth;  yet  they  contain 
sallies  that  savour  rankly  of  the  man  of 
blood.  On  the  other  hand,  Alfred  de  Musset 
had  a  poisoned  and  a  contorted  nature;  I  am 
only  quoting  that  generous  and  frivolous 
giant,  old  Dumas,  when  1  accuse  him  of  a 
bad  heart;  yet,  when  the  impulse  under 
which  he  wrote  was  purely  creative,  he 
could  give  us  works  like  Cannosine  or  Fau- 
Unio,  in  which  the  last  note  of  the  romantic 
comedy  seems  to  have  been  found  again  to 
touch  and  please  us.  When  Flaubert  wrote 
Madame  Bovaiy.  1  believe  he  thought  chiefly 
172 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

of  a  somewhat  morbid  realism ;  and  behold! 
the  book  turned  in  his  hands  into  a  master- 
piece of  appalling  morality.  But  the  truth  is, 
when  books  are  conceived  under  a  great 
stress,  with  a  soul  of  ninefold  power,  nine 
times  heated  and  eledrified  by  effort,  the 
conditions  of  our  being  are  seized  with  such 
an  ample  grasp,  that,  even  should  the  main 
design  be  trivial  or  base,  some  truth  and 
beauty  cannot  fail  to  be  expressed.  Out  of 
the  strong  comes  forth  sweetness;  but  an 
ill  thing  poorly  done  is  an  ill  thing  top  and 
bottom.  And  so  this  can  be  no  encourage- 
mentto  knock-kneed,  feeble-wristedscribes, 
who  must  take  their  business  conscientious- 
ly or  be  ashamed  to  pradise  it. 

Man  is  imperfed;  yet,  in  his  literature,  he 
must  express  himself  and  his  own  views  and 
preferences;  for  to  do  anything  else  is  to  do 
a  far  more  perilous  thing  than  to  risk  being 
immoral:  it  is  to  be  sure  of  being  untrue. 
To  ape  a  sentiment,  even  a  good  one,  is  to 
travesty  a  sentiment;  that  will  not  be  help- 
ful. To  conceal  a  sentiment,  if  you  are  sure 
you  hold  it,  is  to  take  a  liberty  with  truth. 
There  is  probably  no  point  of  view  possible 

'73 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

to  a  sane  man  but  contains  some  truth  and, 
in  the  true  connexion,  might  be  profitable  to 
the  race.  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  truth,  if  any 
one  could  tell  it  me,  but  1  am  afraid  of  parts 
of  it  impertinently  uttered.  There  is  a  time 
to  dance  and  a  time  to  mourn;  to  be  harsh 
as  well  as  to  be  sentimental;  to  be  ascetic 
as  well  as  to  glorify  the  appetites;  and  if  a 
man  were  to  combine  all  these  extremes  in- 
to his  work,  each  in  its  place  and  propor- 
tion, that  work  would  be  the  world's  mas- 
terpiece of  morality  as  well  as  of  art.  Par- 
tiality is  immorality;  for  any  book  is  wrong 
that  gives  a  misleading  picfture  of  the  world 
and  life.  The  trouble  is  that  the  weakling- 
must  be  partial;  the  work  of  one  proving 
dank  and  depressing;  of  another,  cheap  and 
vulgar;  of  a  third,  epileptically  sensual;  of  a 
fourth,  sourly  ascetic.  In  literature  as  in 
condu6t,  you  can  never  hope  to  do  exadly 
right.  All  you  can  do  is  to  make  as  sure  as 
possible;  and  for  that  there  is  but  one  rule. 
Nothing  should  be  done  in  a  hurry  that  can 
be  done  slowly.  It  is  no  use  to  write  a  book 
and  put  it  by  for  nine  or  even  ninety  years; 
for  in  the  writing  you  will  have  partly  con- 
'74 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

vinced  yourself;  the  delay  must  precede  any 
beginning;  and  if  you  meditate  a  work  of 
art,  you  should  first  long  roll  the  subjed 
under  the  tongue  to  make  sure  you  like  the 
flavour,  before  you  brew  a  volume  that  shall 
taste  of  it  from  end  to  end;  or  if  you  pro- 
pose to  enter  on  the  field  of  controversy, 
you  should  first  have  thought  upon  the 
question  under  all  conditions,  in  health  as 
well  as  in  sickness,  in  sorrow  as  well  as  in 
joy.  It  is  this  nearness  of  examination  nec- 
essary for  any  true  and  kind  writing,  that 
makes  the  pradice  of  the  art  a  prolonged 
and  noble  education  for  the  writer. 

There  is  plenty  to  do,  plenty  to  say,  or  to 
say  over  again,  in  the  meantime.  Any  liter- 
ary work  which  conveys  faithful  fads  or 
pleasing  impressions  is  a  service  to  the  pub- 
lic. It  is  even  a  service  to  be  thankfully  proud 
of  having  rendered.  The  slightest  novels  are 
a  blessing  to  those  in  distress,  not  chloro- 
form itself  a  greater.  Our  fine  old  sea-cap- 
tain's life  was  justified  when  Carlyle  soothed 
his  mind  with  The  Kings  Ou'n  or  Newton 
Forster.  To  please  is  to  serve;  and  so  far 
from  its  being  difficult  to  instrud  while  you 

•75 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

amuse,  it  is  difficult  to  do  the  one  thorough- 
ly without  the  other.  Some  part  of  the 
writer  or  his  life  will  crop  out  in  even  a 
vapid  book;  and  to  read  a  novel  that  was 
conceived  with  any  force  is  to  multiply  ex- 
perience and  to  exercise  the  sympathies. 
Every  article,  every  piece  of  verse,  every 
essay,  every  entre-filet,  is  destined  to  pass, 
however  swiftly,  through  the  minds  of  some 
portion  of  the  public,  and  to  colour,  how- 
ever transiently,  their  thoughts.  When  any 
subjeft  falls  to  be  discussed,  some  scribbler 
on  a  paper  has  the  invaluable  opportunity 
of  beginning  its  discussion  in  a  dignified 
and  human  spirit;  and  if  there  were  enough 
who  did  so  in  our  public  press,  neither  the 
public  nor  the  Parliament  would  find  it  in 
their  minds  to  drop  to  meaner  thoughts. 
The  writer  has  the  chance  to  stumble,  by 
the  way,  on  something  pleasing,  something 
interesting,  something  encouraging,  were  it 
only  to  a  single  reader.  He  will  be  unfor- 
tunate, indeed,  if  he  suit  no  one.  He  has  the 
chance,  besides,  to  stumble  on  something 
that  a  dull  person  shall  be  able  to  compre- 
hend; and  for  a  dull  person  to  have  read 
.76 


PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

anything  and,  for  that  once,  comprehended 
it,  makes  a  marking  epoch  in  his  education. 
Here,  then,  is  work  worth  doing  and 
worth  trying  to  do  well.  And  so,  if  1  were 
minded  to  welcome  any  great  accession  to 
our  trade,  it  should  not  be  from  any  reason 
of  a  higher  wage,  but  because  it  was  a 
trade  which  was  useful  in  a  very  great  and 
in  a  very  high  degree;  which  every  honest 
tradesman  could  make  more  serviceable  to 
mankind  in  his  single  strength;  which  was 
difficult  to  do  well  and  possible  to  do  better 
every  year;  which  called  for  scrupulous 
thought  on  the  part  of  all  who  pradised  it, 
and  hence  became  a  perpetual  education  to 
their  nobler  natures;  and  which,  pay  it  as 
you  please,  in  the  large  majority  of  the  best 
cases  will  still  be  underpaid.  For  surely,  at 
this  time  of  day  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  is  nothing  that  an  honest  man  should 
fear  more  timorously  than  gettingand  spend- 
ing more  than  he  deserves. 


'77 


II 

ON  SOME  TECHNICAL  ELE- 
MENTS OF  STYLE  IN 
LITERATURE' 

>HERE  is  nothing  more  disenchant- 
ing to  man  than  to  be  shown  the 
springs  and  mechanism  of  any  art. 
AH  our  arts  and  occupations  lie  wholly  on 
the  surface;  it  is  on  the  surface  that  we  per- 
ceive their  beauty,  fitness,  and  significance; 
and  to  pry  below  is  to  be  appalled  by  their 
emptiness  and  shocked  by  the  coarseness  of 
the  strings  and  pulleys.  In  a  similar  way, 
psychology  itself,  when  pushed  to  any  nice- 
ty, discovers  an  abhorrent  baldness,  but 
rather  from  the  fault  of  our  analysis  than 
from  any  poverty  native  to  the  mind.  And 
perhaps  in  aesthetics  the  reason  is  the  same: 
those  disclosures  which  seem  fatal  to  the 
dignity  of  art  seem  so  perhaps  only  in  the 

'  First  published  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  April, 
1885. 

178 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

proportion  of  our  ignorance;  and  those  con- 
scious and  unconscious  artifices  which  it 
seems  unworthy  of  the  serious  artist  to  em- 
ploy were  yet,  if  we  had  the  power  to  trace 
them  to  their  springs,  indications  of  a  deli- 
cacy of  the  sense  finer  than  we  conceive, 
and  hints  of  ancient  harmonies  in  nature. 
This  ignorance  at  least  is  largely  irremedi- 
able. We  shall  never  learn  the  affinities  of 
beauty,  for  they  lie  too  deep  in  nature  and 
too  far  back  in  the  mysterious  history  of 
man.  The  amateur,  in  consequence,  will  al- 
ways grudgingly  receive  details  of  method, 
which  can  be  stated  but  never  can  wholly 
be  explained ;  nay, on  the  principle  laid  down 
in  "Hudibras,"  that 

"Still  the  less  they  understand, 
The  more  they  admire  the  sleight-of-hand," 

many  are  conscious  at  each  new  disclosure 
of  a  diminution  in  the  ardour  of  their  pleas- 
ure. 1  must  therefore  warn  that  well-known 
charader,  the  general  reader,  that  1  am  here 
embarked  upon  a  most  distasteful  business: 
taking  down  the  pidure  from  the  wall  and 
looking  on  the  back:  and,  like  the  inquiring 
child,  pulling  the  musical  cart  to  pieces. 

'79 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

I.  Choice  of  IVords. — The  art  of  litera- 
HTre  stands  apart  from  among  its  sisters,  be- 
cause the  material  in  which  the  Hterary  artist 
works  is  the  dialeft  of  hfe ;  hence, on  the  one 
hand,  a  strange  freshness  and  immediacy  of 
address  to  the  public  mind,  which  is  ready 
prepared  to  understand  it;  but  hence,  on  the 
other,  a  singular  limitation.  The  sister  arts 
enjoy  the  use  of  a  plastic  and  duflile  ma- 
terial, like  the  modeller's  clay;  literature 
alone  is  condemned  to  work  in  mosaic  with 
finite  and  quite  rigid  words.  You  have  seen 
these  blocks,  dear  to  the  nursery :  this  one  a 
pillar,  that  a  pediment,  a  third  a  window  or 
a  vase.  It  is  with  blocks  of  just  such  arbi- 
trary size  and  figure  that  the  literary  archi- 
tect is  condemned  to  design  the  palace  of 
his  art.  Nor  is  this  all ;  for  since  these  blocks, 
or  words,  are  the  acknowledged  currency  of 
our  daily  affairs, there  are  here  possible  none 
of  those  suppressions  by  which  other  arts 
obtain  relief,  continuity,  and  vigour:  no  hie- 
roglyphic touch,  no  smoothed  impasto,  no 
inscrutable  shadow,  as  in  painting;  no  blank 
wall,  as  in  architecfture;  but  every  word, 
phrase,  sentence,  and  paragraph  must  move 
1 80 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

in  a  logical  progression,  and  convey  a  defi- 
nite conventional  import. 

Now  the  first  merit  which  attracts  in  the 
pages  of  a  good  writer,  or  the  talk  of  a  bril- 
liant conversationalist,  is  the  apt  choice  and 
contrast  of  the  words  employed,  it  is,  in- 
deed, a  strange  art  to  take  these  blocks, 
rudely  conceived  for  the  purpose  of  the  mar- 
ket or  the  bar,  and  by  tad  of  application 
touch  them  to  the  finest  meanings  and  dis- 
tindions,  restore  to  them  their  primal  en- 
ergy, wittily  shift  them  to  another  issue,  or 
make  of  them  a  drum  to  rouse  the  passions. 
But  though  this  form  of  merit  is  without 
doubt  the  most  sensible  and  seizing,  it  is  far 
from  being  equally  present  in  all  writers. 
The  effed  of  words  in  Shakespeare,  their 
singular  justice,  significance,  and  poetic 
charm,  is  different,  indeed,  from  the  efifed 
of  words  in  Addison  or  Fielding.  Or,  to 
take  an  example  nearer  home,  the  words  in 
Carlyle  seem  eledrified  into  an  energy  of 
lineament,  like  the  faces  of  men  furiously 
moved;  whilst  the  words  in  Macaulay,  apt 
enough  to  convey  his  meaning,  harmonious 
enough  in  sound,  yet  glide  from  the  mem- 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ory  like  undistinguished  elements  in  a  gen- 
eral effed.  But  the  first  class  of  writers  have 
no  monopoly  of  literary  merit.  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  Addison  is  superior  to  Car- 
lyle;  a  sense  in  which  Cicero  is  better  than 
Tacitus,  in  which  Voltaire  excels  Montaigne : 
it  certainly  lies  not  in  the  choice  of  words; 
it  lies  not  in  the  interest  or  value  of  the  mat- 
ter; it  lies  not  in  force  of  intelled,  of  poetry, 
or  of  humour.  The  three  first  are  but  infants 
to  the  three  second;  and  yet  each,  in  a  par- 
ticular point  of  literary  art,  excels  his  su- 
perior in  the  whole.  What  is  that  point  ? 

2.  The  Web.  —  Literature,  although  it 
stands  apart  by  reason  of  the  great  destiny 
and  general  use  of  its  medium  in  the  affairs 
of  men,  is  yet  an  art  like  other  arts.  Of 
these  we  may  distinguish  two  great  classes: 
those  arts,  like  sculpture,  painting,  ading, 
which  are  representative,  or,  as  used  to  be 
said  very  clumsily,  imitative ;  and  those,  like 
archite(fture,  music,  and  the  dance,  which 
are  self-sufficient,  and  merely  presentative. 
Each  class,  in  right  of  this  distindion,  obeys 
principles  apart;  yet  both  may  claim  a  com- 
mon ground  of  existence,  and  it  may  be  said 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

with  sufficient  justice  that  the  motive  and 
end  of  any  art  whatever  is  to  make  a  pat- 
tern; a  pattern,  it  may  be,  of  colours,  of 
sounds,  of  changing  attitudes,  geometrical 
figures,  or  imitative  lines ;  but  still  a  pattern. 
That  is  the  plane  on  which  these  sisters  meet ; 
it  is  by  this  that  they  are  arts;  and  if  it  be 
well  they  should  at  times  forget  their  child- 
ish origin,  addressing  their  inteUigence  to 
virile  tasks,  and  performing  unconsciously 
that  necessary  fundion  of  their  life,  to  make 
a  pattern,  it  is  still  imperative  that  the  pat- 
tern shall  be  made. 

Music  and  literature,  the  two  temporal 
arts,  contrive  their  pattern  of  sounds  in 
time;  or,  in  other  words,  of  sounds  and 
pauses.  Communication  may  be  made  in 
broken  words,  the  business  of  life  be  carried 
on  with  substantives  alone;  but  that  is  not 
what  we  call  literature;  and  the  true  busi- 
ness of  the  literary  artist  is  to  plait  or  weave 
his  meaning,  involving  it  around  itself;  so 
that  each  sentence,  by  successive  phrases, 
shall  first  come  into  a  kind  of  knot,  and 
then,  after  a  moment  of  suspended  mean- 
ing, solve  and  clear  itself  In  every  properly 

•8> 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

constru(fted  sentence  there  should  be  ob- 
served this  knot  or  hitch;  so  that  (however 
delicately)  we  are  led  to  foresee,  to  exped, 
and  then  to  welcome  the  successive  phrases. 
The  pleasure  may  be  heightened  by  an  ele- 
ment of  surprise,  as,  very  grossly,  in  the 
common  figure  of  the  antithesis,  or,  with 
much  greater  subtlety,  where  an  antithesis 
is  first  suggested  and  then  deftly  evaded. 
Each  phrase,  besides,  is  to  be  comely  in  it- 
self; and  between  the  implication  and  the 
evolution  of  the  sentence  there  should  be  a 
satisfying  equipoise  of  sound;  for  nothing 
more  often  disappoints  the  ear  than  a  sen- 
tence solemnly  and  sonorously  prepared, 
and  hastily  and  weakly  finished.  Nor  should 
the  balance  be  too  striking  and  exad,  for 
the  one  rule  is  to  be  infinitely  various;  to 
interest,  to  disappoint,  to  surprise,  and  yet 
still  to  gratify;  to  be  ever  changing,  as  it 
were,  the  stitch,  and  yet  still  to  give  the 
effeft  of  an  ingenious  neatness. 

The  conjurer  juggles  with  two  oranges, 
and  our  pleasure  in  beholding  him  springs 
from  this,  that  neither  is  for  an  instant  over- 
looked or  sacrificed.  So  with  the  writer.  His 
184 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

pattern,  which  is  to  please  the  supersensual 
ear,  is  yet  addressed,  throughout  and  first 
of  all,  to  the  demands  of  logic.  Whatever 
be  the  obscurities,  whatever  the  intricacies 
of  the  argument,  the  neatness  of  the  fabric 
must  not  suffer,  or  the  artist  has  been  proved 
unequal  to  his  design.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  form  of  words  must  be  seleded, 
no  knot  must  be  tied  among  the  phrases, 
unless  knot  and  word  be  precisely  what  is 
wanted  to  forward  and  illuminate  the  argu- 
ment; for  to  fail  in  this  is  to  swindle  in  the 
game.  The  genius  of  prose  rejects  the  che- 
ville  no  less  emphatically  than  the  laws  of 
verse;  and  the  cheville,  I  should  perhaps  ex- 
plain to  some  of  my  readers,  is  any  mean- 
ingless or  very  watered  phrase  employed  to 
strike  a  balance  in  the  sound.  Pattern  and 
argument  hve  in  each  other;  and  it  is  by  the 
brevity,  clearness,  charm,  or  emphasis  of  the 
second,  that  we  judge  the  strength  and  fit- 
ness of  the  first. 

Style  is  synthetic;  and  the  artist,  seeking, 
so  to  speak,  a  peg  to  plait  about,  takes  up 
at  once  two  or  more  elements  or  two  or 
more  views  of  the  subjed  in  hand;  com- 

185 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

bines,  implicates,  and  contrasts  them;  and 
while,  in  one  sense,  he  was  merely  seeking 
an  occasion  for  the  necessary  knot,  he  will 
be  found,  in  the  other,  to  have  greatly  en- 
riched the  meaning,  or  to  have  transaded 
the  work  of  two  sentences  in  the  space  of 
one.  In  the  change  from  the  successive  shal- 
low statements  of  the  old  chronicler  to  the 
dense  and  luminous  flow  of  highly  synthetic 
narrative,  there  is  implied  a  vast  amount  of 
both  philosophy  and  wit.  The  philosophy 
we  clearly  see,  recognising  in  the  synthetic 
writer  a  far  more  deep  and  stimulating  view 
of  life,  and  a  far  keener  sense  of  the  genera- 
tion and  affinity  of  events.  The  wit  we  might 
imagine  to  be  lost;  but  it  is  not  so,  for  it  is 
just  that  wit,  these  perpetual  nice  contriv- 
ances, these  difficulties  overcome,  this  double 
purpose  attained,  these  two  oranges  kept 
simultaneously  dancing  in  the  air,  that,  con- 
sciously or  not,  afford  the  reader  his  delight. 
Nay,  and  this  wit,  so  little  recognised,  is  the 
necessary  organ  of  that  philosophy  which 
we  so  much  admire.  That  style  is  therefore 
the  most  perfect,  not,  as  fools  say,  which  is 
the  most  natural,  for  the  most  natural  is  the 
186 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

disjointed  babble  of  the  chronicler;  but 
which  attains  the  highest  degree  of  elegant 
and  pregnant  implication  unobtrusively;  or 
if  obtrusively,  then  with  the  greatest  gain 
to  sense  and  vigour.  Even  the  derangement 
of  the  phrases  from  their  (so-called)  natural 
order  is  luminous  for  the  mind;  and  it  is  by 
the  means  of  such  designed  reversal  that  the 
elements  of  a  judgment  may  be  most  per- 
tinently marshalled,  or  the  stages  of  a  com- 
plicated a6lion  most  perspicuously  bound 
into  one. 

The  web,  then,  or  the  pattern:  a  web  at 
once  sensuous  and  logical,  an  elegant  and 
pregnant  texture:  that  is  style,  that  is  the 
foundation  of  the  art  of  literature.  Books  in- 
deed continue  to  be  read,  for  the  interest  of 
the  fad  or  fable,  in  which  this  quality  is 
poorly  represented,  but  still  it  will  be  there. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  how  many  do  we 
continue  to  peruse  and  reperuse  with  pleas- 
ure whose  only  merit  is  the  elegance  of  tex- 
ture.? 1  am  tempted  to  mention  Cicero;  and 
since  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope  is  dead,  1  will. 
It  is  a  poor  diet  for  the  mind,  a  very  colour- 
less and  toothless  "criticism  of  life";  but  we 

187 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

enjoy  the  pleasure  of  a  most  intricate  and 
dexterous  pattern,  every  stitch  a  model  at 
once  of  elegance  and  of  good  sense;  and  the 
two  oranges,  even  if  one  of  them  be  rotten, 
kept  dancing  with  inimitable  grace. 

Up  to  this  moment  I  have  had  my  eye 
mainly  upon  prose;  for  though  in  verse  also 
the  implication  of  the  logical  texture  is  a 
crowning  beauty,  yet  in  verse  it  may  be  dis- 
pensed with.  You  would  think  that  here  was 
a  death-blow  to  all  I  have  been  saying;  and 
far  from  that,  it  is  but  a  new  illustration  of 
the  principle  involved.  For  if  the  versifier  is 
not  bound  to  weave  a  pattern  of  his  own,  it 
is  because  another  pattern  has  been  formally 
imposed  upon  him  by  the  laws  of  verse.  For 
that  is  the  essence  of  a  prosody.  Verse  may 
be  rhythmical;  it  may  be  merely  alliterative; 
it  may,  like  the  French,  depend  wholly  on 
the  (quasi)  regular  recurrence  of  the  rhyme; 
or,  like  the  Hebrew,  it  may  consist  in  the 
strangely  fanciful  device  of  repeating  the 
same  idea.  It  does  not  matter  on  what  prin- 
ciple the  law  is  based,  so  it  be  a  law.  It  may 
be  pure  convention ;  it  may  have  no  inherent 
beauty ;  all  that  we  have  a  right  to  ask  of  any 
i88 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

prosody  is,  that  it  shall  lay  down  a  pattern 
for  the  writer,  and  that  what  it  lays  down 
shall  be  neither  too  easy  nor  too  hard.  Hence 
it  comes  that  it  is  much  easier  for  men  of 
equal  facility  to  write  fairly  pleasing  verse 
than  reasonably  interesting  prose;  for  in 
prose  the  pattern  itself  has  to  be  invented, 
and  the  difficulties  first  created  before  they 
can  be  solved.  Hence,  again,  there  follows 
the  peculiar  greatness  of  the  true  versifier: 
such  as  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Vidor 
Hugo,  whom  1  place  beside  them  as  versifier 
merely,  not  as  poet.  These  not  only  knit  and 
knot  the  logical  texture  of  the  style  with  all 
the  dexterity  and  strength  of  prose ;  they  not 
only  fill  up  the  pattern  of  the  verse  with  in- 
finite variety  and  sober  wit;  but  they  give 
us,  besides,  a  rare  and  special  pleasure,  by 
the  art,  comparable  to  that  of  counterpoint, 
with  which  they  follow  at  the  same  time, 
and  now  contrast,  and  now  combine,  the 
double  pattern  of  the  texture  and  the  verse. 
Here  the  sounding  line  concludes;  a  little 
further  on,  the  well-knit  sentence;  and  yet  a 
little  further,  and  both  will  reach  their  solu- 
tion on  the  same  ringing  syllable.  The  best 

189 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

that  can  be  offered  by  the  best  writer  of 
prose  is  to  show  us  the  development  of  the 
idea  and  the  styHstic  pattern  proceed  hand 
in  hand,  sometimes  by  an  obvious  and  tri- 
umphant effort,  sometimes  with  a  great  air 
of  ease  and  nature.  The  writer  of  verse,  by 
virtue  of  conquering  another  difficulty,  de- 
lights us  with  a  new  series  of  triumphs.  He 
follows  three  purposes  where  his  rival  fol- 
lowed only  two;  and  the  change  is  of  pre- 
cisely the  same  nature  as  that  from  melody 
to  harmony.  Or  if  you  prefer  to  return  to  the 
juggler,  behold  him  now,  to  the  vastly  in- 
creased enthusiasm  of  the  spectators,  jug- 
gling with  three  oranges  instead  of  two. 
Thus  it  is:  added  difficulty,  added  beauty; 
and  the  pattern,  with  every  fresh  element, 
becoming  more  interesting  in  itself. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  verse  is 
simply  an  addition;  something  is  lost  as 
well  as  something  gained;  and  there  re- 
mains plainly  traceable,  in  comparing  the 
best  prose  with  the  best  verse,  a  certain 
broad  distindion  of  method  in  the  web. 
Tight  as  the  versifier  may  draw  the  knot  of 
logic,  yet  for  the  ear  he  still  leaves  the  tissue 
190 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

of  the  sentence  floating  somewhat  loose.  In 
prose,  the  sentence  turns  upon  a  pivot,  nice- 
ly balanced,  and  fits  into  itself  with  an  ob- 
trusive neatness  like  a  puzzle.  The  ear  re- 
marks and  is  singly  gratified  by  this  return 
and  balance;  while  in  verse  it  is  all  diverted 
to  the  measure.  To  find  comparable  pas- 
sages is  hard ;  for  either  the  versifier  is  hugely 
the  superior  of  the  rival,  or,  if  he  be  not,  and 
still  persist  in  his  more  delicate  enterprise, 
he  fails  to  be  as  widely  his  inferior.  But  let 
us  seleft  them  from  the  pages  of  the  same 
writer,  one  who  was  ambidexter;  let  us 
take,  for  instance,  Rumour's  Prologue  to  the 
Second  Part  oi  Henry  IV.,  a  fine  flourish  of 
eloquence  in  Shakespeare's  second  manner, 
and  set  it  side  by  side  with  Falstaff's  praise 
of  sherris,  ad  iv.  scene  i.;  or  let  us  com- 
pare the  beautiful  prose  spoken  throughout 
by  Rosalind  and  Orlando;  compare,  for  ex- 
ample, the  first  speech  of  all,  Orlando's 
speech  to  Adam,  with  what  passage  it  shall 
please  you  to  seleft — the  Seven  Ages  from 
the  same  play,  or  even  such  a  stave  of  no- 
bility as  Othello's  farewell  to  war;  and  still 
you  will  be  able  to  perceive,  if  you  have  an 

191 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ear  for  that  class  of  music,  a  certain  superior 
degree  of  organisation  in  the  prose;  a  com- 
parer fitting  of  the  parts;  a  balance  in  the 
swing  and  the  return  as  of  a  throbbing  pen- 
dulum. We  must  not,  in  things  temporal, 
take  from  those  who  have  little,  the  little 
that  they  have;  the  merits  of  prose  are  in- 
ferior, but  they  are  not  the  same;  it  is  a  little 
kingdom,  but  an  independent. 

3.  Rhythm  of  the  Phrjse. — Some  way 
back,  I  used  a  word  which  still  awaits  an 
application.  Each  phrase,  1  said,  was  to  be 
comely;  but  what  is  a  comely  phrase  ?  In  all 
ideal  and  material  points,  literature,  being  a 
representative  art,  must  look  for  analogies 
to  painting  and  the  like ;  but  in  what  is  tech- 
nical and  executive,  being  a  temporal  art, 
it  must  seek  for  them  in  music.  Each  phrase 
of  each  sentence,  like  an  air  or  a  recitative 
in  music,  should  be  so  artfully  compounded 
out  of  long  and  short,  out  of  accented  and 
unaccented,  as  to  gratify  the  sensual  ear. 
And  of  this  the  ear  is  the  sole  judge.  It  is 
impossible  to  lay  down  laws.  Even  in  our 
accentual  and  rhythmic  language  no  analysis 
can  find  the  secret  of  the  beauty  of  a  verse; 
192 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

how  much  less,  then,  of  those  phrases,  such 
as  prose  is  built  of,  which  obey  no  law  but 
to  be  lawless  and  yet  to  please  ?  The  little 
that  we  know  of  verse  (and  for  my  part  I 
owe  it  all  to  my  friend  Professor  Fleeming 
Jenkin)  is,  however,  particularly  interesting 
in  the  present  connection.  We  have  been 
accustomed  to  describe  the  heroic  line  as 
five  iambic  feet,  and  to  be  filled  with  pain 
and  confusion  whenever,  as  by  the  consci- 
entious schoolboy,  we  have  heard  our  own 
description  put  in  practice. 

"All  night  I  the  dread  |  less  an  |  gel  un  ]  pursued,'" 

goes  the  schoolboy;  but  though  we  close 
our  ears,  we  cling  to  our  definition,  in  spite 
of  its  proved  and  naked  insufficiency.  Mr. 
Jenkin  was  not  so  easily  pleased,  and  readily 
discovered  that  the  heroic  line  consists  of 
four  groups,  or,  if  you  prefer  the  phrase, 
contains  four  pauses: 

"All  night  I  the  dreadless  |  angel  |  unpursued." 

Four  groups,  each  pradically  uttered  as  one 
word:  the  first,  in  this  case,  an  iamb;  the 
second,  an  amphibrachys;  the  third,  a  tro- 
chee; and  the  fourth,  an  amphimacer;  and 

'  Milton. 

'93 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

yet  our  schoolboy,  with  no  other  liberty  but 
that  of  infliding  pain,  had  triumphantly 
scanned  it  as  five  iambs.  Perceive,  now,  this 
fresh  richness  of  intricacy  in  the  web;  this 
fourth  orange,  hitherto  unremarked,  but 
still  kept  flying  with  the  others.  What  had 
seemed  to  be  one  thing  it  now  appears  is 
two;  and,  like  some  puzzle  in  arithmetic, 
the  verse  is  made  at  the  same  time  to  read 
in  fives  and  to  read  in  fours. 

But  again,  four  is  not  necessary.  We  do 
not,  indeed,  find  verses  in  six  groups,  be- 
cause there  is  not  room  for  six  in  the  ten 
syllables;  and  we  do  not  find  verses  of  two, 
because  one  of  the  main  distindions  of  verse 
from  prose  resides  in  the  comparative  short- 
ness of  the  group;  but  it  is  even  common 
to  find  verses  of  three.  Five  is  the  one  for- 
bidden number;  because  five  is  the  number 
of  the  feet;  and  if  five  were  chosen,  the  two 
patterns  would  coincide,  and  that  opposi- 
tion which  is  the  life  of  verse  would  instant- 
ly be  lost.  We  have  here  a  clue  to  the  effect 
of  polysyllables,  above  all  in  Latin,  where 
they  are  so  common  and  make  so  brave  an 
architedure  in  the  verse;  for  the  polysylla- 
'94 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

ble  is  a  group  of  Nature's  making.  If  but 
some  Roman  would  return  from  Hades 
(Martial,  for  choice),  and  tell  me  by  what 
condud  of  the  voice  these  thundering  verses 
should  be  uttered — ''  Aiit  Lacedcemonium 
Tareutum,"  for  a  cise  in  point  —  I  feel  as 
if  I  should  enter  at  last  into  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  the  best  of  human  verses. 

But,  again,  the  five  feet  are  all  iambic,  or 
supposed  to  be;  by  the  mere  count  of  syl- 
lables the  four  groups  cannot  be  all  iambic; 
as  a  question  of  elegance,  I  doubt  if  any  one 
of  them  requires  to  be  so;  and  1  am  certain 
that  for  choice  no  two  of  them  should  scan 
the  same.  The  singular  beauty  of  the  verse 
analysed  above  is  due,  so  far  as  analysis  can 
carry  us,  part,  indeed,  to  the  clever  repetition 
of  L,  D,  and  N,  but  part  tothis  variety  of  scan- 
sionin  the  groups. The  groups  which, likethe 
barin music,  break  upthe  verse  forutterance, 
fall  uniambically;  and  in  declaiming  a  so- 
called  iambic  verse,  it  may  so  happen  that  we 
never  utter  one  iambic  foot.  And  yet  to  this 
neglefl  of  the  original  beat  there  is  a  limit. 

"Athens,  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts,"  ' 
■  Milton. 

>95 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

is,  with  all  its  eccentricities,  a  good  heroic 
line ;  for  though  it  scarcely  can  be  said  to  in- 
dicate the  beat  of  the  iamb,  it  certainly  sug- 
gests no  other  measure  to  the  ear.  But  begin 

"  Mother  Athens,  eye  of  Greece," 

or  merely  "  Mother  Athens,"  and  the  game 
is  up,  for  the  trochaic  beat  has  been  sug- 
gested. The  eccentric  scansion  of  the  groups 
is  an  adornment;  but  as  soon  as  the  original 
beat  has  been  forgotten,  they  cease  implicitly 
to  be  eccentric.  Variety  is  what  is  sought; 
but  if  we  destroy  the  original  mould,  one  of 
the  terms  of  this  variety  is  lost,  and  we  fall 
back  on  sameness.  Thus,  both  as  to  the  arith- 
metical measure  of  the  verse,  and  the  degree 
of  regularity  in  scansion,  we  see  the  laws  of 
prosody  to  have  one  common  purpose:  to 
keep  alive  the  opposition  of  two  schemes 
simultaneously  followed;  to  keep  them  not- 
ably apart,  though  still  coincident;  and  to 
balance  them  with  such  judicial  nicety  be- 
fore the  reader,  that  neither  shall  be  unper- 
ceived  and  neither  signally  prevail. 

The  rule  of  rhythm  in  prose  is  not  so  intri- 
cate. Here,  too,  we  write  in  groups,  or 
phrases,  as  I  prefer  to  call  them,  for  the  prose 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

phrase  is  greatly  longer  and  is  much  more 
nonchalantly  uttered  than  the  group  in  verse ; 
so  that  not  only  is  there  a  greater  interval  of 
continuous  sound  between  the  pauses,  but, 
for  that  very  reason,  word  is  linked  more 
readily  to  word  by  a  more  summary  enun- 
ciation. Still,  the  phrase  is  the  strict  analogue 
of  the  group,  and  successive  phrases,  like 
successive  groups,  must  differ  openly  in 
length  and  rhythm.  The  rule  of  scansion  in 
verse  is  to  suggest  no  measure  but  the  one 
in  hand;  in  prose,  to  suggest  no  measure  at 
all.  Prose  must  be  rhythmical,  and  it  may  be 
as  much  so  as  you  will;  but  it  must  not  be 
metrical.  It  maybe  anything,  but  it  must  not 
be  verse.  A  single  heroic  line  may  very  well 
pass  and  not  disturb  the  somewhat  larger 
stride  of  the  prose  style;  but  one  following 
another  will  produce  an  instant  impression 
of  poverty,  flatness,  and  disenchantment. 
The  same  lines  delivered  with  the  measured 
utterance  of  verse  would  perhaps  seem  rich 
in  variety.  By  the  more  summary  enunciation 
proper  to  prose,  as  to  a  more  distant  vision, 
these  niceties  of  difference  are  lost.  A  whole 
verse  is  uttered  as  one  phrase;  and  the  ear  is 

107 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

soon  wearied  by  a  succession  of  groups 
identical  in  length.  The  prose  writer,  in  fad, 
since  he  is  allowed  to  be  so  much  less  har- 
monious, is  condemned  to  a  perpetually 
fresh  variety  of  movement  on  a  larger  scale, 
and  must  never  disappoint  the  ear  by  the 
trot  of  an  accepted  metre.  And  this  obliga- 
tion is  the  third  orange  with  which  he  has 
to  juggle,  the  third  quality  which  the  prose 
writer  must  work  into  his  pattern  of  words. 
It  may  be  thought  perhaps  that  this  is  a 
quality  of  ease  rather  than  a  fresh  difficulty; 
but  such  is  the  inherently  rhythmical  strain 
of  the  English  language,  that  the  bad  writer 
—  and  must  I  take  for  example  that  admired 
friend  of  my  boyhood,  Captain  Reid.^ — the 
inexperienced  writer,  as  Dickens  in  his 
earlier  attempts  to  be  impressive,  and  the 
jaded  writer,  as  any  one  may  see  for  himself, 
all  tend  to  fall  at  once  into  the  produdion  of 
bad  blank  verse.  And  here  it  may  be  perti- 
nently asked,  Why  bad.?  And  1  suppose  it 
might  be  enough  to  answer  that  no  man  ever 
made  good  verse  by  accident,  and  that  no 
verse  can  ever  sound  otherwise  than  trivial 
when  uttered  with  the  delivery  of  prose.  But 
198 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

we  can  go  beyond  such  answers.  The  weak 
side  of  verse  is  the  regularity  of  the  beat, 
which  in  itself  is  decidedly  less  impressive 
than  the  movement  of  the  nobler  prose ;  and  it 
is  just  into  this  weak  side,  and  this  alone,  that 
our  careless  writer  falls.  A  peculiar  density 
and  mass,  consequent  on  the  nearness  of  the 
pauses,  is  one  of  the  chief  good  qualities  of 
verse;  but  this  our  accidental  versifier,  still 
following  after  the  swift  gait  and  large  ges- 
tures of  prose,  does  not  so  much  as  aspire  to 
imitate.  Lastly,  since  he  remains  uncon- 
scious that  he  is  making  verse  at  all,  it  can 
never  occur  to  him  to  extract  those  effects  of 
counterpoint  and  opposition  which  1  have 
referred  to  as  the  final  grace  and  justification 
of  verse,  and,  I  may  add,  of  blank  verse  in 
particular. 

4.  Contents  of  the  Phrase. — Here  is  a 
great  deal  of  talk  about  rhythm  — and  nat- 
urally; for  in  our  canorous  language  rhythm 
is  always  at  the  door.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  in  some  languages  this  ele- 
ment is  almost,  if  not  quite,  extind,  and 
that  in  our  own  it  is  probably  decaying. 
The  even  speech  of  many  educated  Ameri- 

199 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

cans  sounds  the  note  of  danger.  1  should  see 
it  go  with  something  as  bitter  as  despair, 
but  I  should  not  be  desperate.  As  in  verse 
no  element,  not  even  rhythm,  is  necessary, 
so,  in  prose  also,  other  sorts  of  beauty  will 
arise  and  take  the  place  and  play  the  part  of 
those  that  we  outlive.  The  beauty  of  the  ex- 
peded  beat  in  verse,  the  beauty  in  prose  of 
its  larger  and  more  lawless  melody,  patent 
as  they  are  to  English  hearing,  are  already 
silent  in  the  ears  of  our  next  neighbours ;  for 
in  France  the  oratorical  accent  and  the  pat- 
tern of  the  web  have  almost  or  altogether 
succeeded  to  their  places;  and  the  French 
prose  writer  would  be  astounded  at  the 
labours  of  his  brother  across  the  Channel, 
and  how  a  good  quarter  of  his  toil,  above 
all  inviia  Minerva,  is  to  avoid  writing  verse. 
So  wonderfully  f^ir  apart  have  races  wan- 
dered in  spirit,  and  so  hard  it  is  to  under- 
stand the  literature  next  door! 

Yet  French  prose  is  distindly  better  than 
English;  and  French  verse,  above  all  while 
Hugo  lives,  it  will  not  do  to  place  upon  one 
side.  What  is  more  to  our  purpose,  a  phrase 
or  a  verse  in  French  is  easilv  distinguishable 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

as  comely  or  uncomely.  There  is  then  an- 
other element  of  comeliness  hitherto  over- 
looked in  this  analysis:  the  contents  of  the 
phrase.  Each  phrase  in  literature  is  built  of 
sounds,  as  each  phrase  in  music  consists  of 
notes.  One  sound  suggests,  echoes,  de- 
mands, and  harmonises  with  another;  and 
the  art  of  rightly  using  these  concordances 
is  the  final  art  in  literature.  It  used  to  be  a 
piece  of  good  advice  to  all  young  writers  to 
avoid  alliteration ;  and  the  advice  was  sound, 
in  so  far  as  it  prevented  daubing.  None  the 
less  for  that,  was  it  abominable  nonsense, 
and  the  mere  raving  of  those  blindest  of  the 
blind  who  will  not  see.  The  beauty  of  the 
contents  of  a  phrase,  or  of  a  sentence,  de- 
pends implicitly  upon  alliteration  and  upon 
assonance.  The  vowel  demands  to  be  re- 
peated; the  consonant  demands  to  be  re- 
peated; and  both  cry  aloud  to  be  perpetually 
varied.  You  may  follow  the  adventures  of  a 
letter  through  any  passage  that  has  particu- 
larly pleased  you;  find  it,  perhaps,  denied 
awhile,  to  tantalise  the  ear;  find  it  fired  again 
at  you  in  a  whole  broadside;  or  find  it  pass 
into  congenerous  sounds,  one  liquid  or  la- 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

bial  melting  away  into  another.  And  you 
will  find  another  and  much  stranger  circum- 
stance. Literature  is  written  by  and  for  two 
senses:  a  sort  of  internal  ear,  quick  to  per- 
ceive "unheard  melodies";  and  the  eye, 
which  direfts  the  pen  and  deciphers  the 
printed  phrase.  Well,  even  as  there  are 
rhymes  for  the  eye,  so  you  will  find  that 
there  are  assonances  and  alliterations;  that 
where  an  author  is  running  the  open  A,  de- 
ceived by  the  eye  and  our  strange  English 
spelling,  he  will  often  show  a  tenderness  for 
the  flat  A;  and  that  where  he  is  running  a 
particular  consonant,  he  will  not  improbably 
rejoice  to  write  it  down  even  when  it  is 
mute  or  bears  a  different  value. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  fresh  pattern  —  a 
pattern,  to  speak  grossly,  of  letters  —  which 
makes  the  fourth  preoccupation  of  the  prose 
writer,  and  the  fifth  of  the  versifier.  At  times 
it  is  very  delicate  and  hard  to  perceive,  and 
then  perhaps  most  excellent  and  winning 
(1  say  perhaps);  but  at  times  again  the  ele- 
ments of  this  literal  melody  stand  more 
boldly  forward  and  usurp  the  ear.  It  be- 
comes,  therefore,   somewhat   a   matter  of 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

conscience  to  seleft  examples;  and  as  I  can- 
not very  well  ask  the  reader  to  help  me,  I 
shall  do  the  next  best  by  giving  him  the  rea- 
son or  the  history  of  each  sele(ftion.  The  two 
first,  one  in  prose,  one  in  verse,  1  chose 
without  previous  analysis,  simply  as  engag- 
ing passages  that  had  long  re-echoed  in  my 
ear. 

"  1  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered 
virtue,  unexercised  and  unbreathed,  that 
never  sallies  out  and  sees  her  adversary,  but 
slinks  out  of  the  race  where  that  immortal 
garland  is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust 
and  heat."'  Down  to  "virtue,"  the  current 
S  and  R  are  both  announced  and  repeated 
unobtrusively,  and  by  way  of  a  grace-note 
that  almost  inseparable  group  PVF  is  given 
entire.^  The  next  phrase  is  a  period  of  re- 
pose, almost  ugly  in  itself,  both  S  and  R 
still  audible,  and  B  given  as  the  last  fulfil- 

'  Milton. 

'As  PVF  will  continue  to  haunt  us  through  our  Eng- 
lish examples,  take,  by  way  of  comparison,  this  Latin 
verse,  of  which  it  forms  a  chief  adornment,  and  do  not 
hold  me  answerable  for  the  all  too  Roman  freedom  of 
the  sense:  "Hanc  volo,  quae  facilis,  qus  palliolata  vaga- 
tur." 

203 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

ment  of  PVF.  In  the  next  four  phrases,  from 
"  that  never"  down  to  "  run  for,"  the  mask 
is  thrown  off,  and,  but  for  a  slight  repeti- 
tion of  the  F  and  V,  the  whole  matter  turns, 
almost  too  obtrusively,  on  S  and  R;  first  S 
coming  to  the  front,  and  then  R.  In  the  con- 
cluding phrase  all  these  favourite  letters,  and 
even  the  flat  A,  a  timid  preference  for  which 
is  just  perceptible,  are  discarded  at  a  blow 
and  in  a  bundle;  and  to  make  the  break 
more  obvious,  every  word  ends  with  a  den- 
tal, and  all  but  one  with  T,  for  which  we 
have  been  cautiously  prepared  since  the  be- 
ginning. The  singular  dignity  of  the  first 
clause,  and  this  hammer-stroke  of  the  last, 
go  far  to  make  the  charm  of  this  exquisite 
sentence.  But  it  is  fair  to  own  that  S  and  R 
are  used  a  little  coarsely. 

"InXanadv  did  Kubla  Khan  (KANDL) 

A  stately  pleasure  dome  decree,  (KDLSR) 

Where  Alph  the  sacred  river  ran,  (KANDLSR) 

Through  caverns  measureless  to  man,  (KANLSR) 

Down  to  a  sunless  sea. "  '  (NDLS) 

Here  I  have  put  the  analysis  of  the  main 
group  alongside  the  lines;  and  the  more  it 

'  Coleridge. 
204 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

is  looked  at,  the  more  interesting  it  will 
seem.  But  there  are  further  niceties.  In  lines 
two  and  four,  the  current  S  is  most  delicately 
varied  with  Z.  In  line  three,  the  current  flat 
A  is  twice  varied  with  the  open  A,  already 
suggested  in  line  two,  and  both  times 
("where"  and  "sacred")  in  conjundion 
with  the  current  R.  In  the  same  line  F  and 
V  (a  harmony  in  themselves,  even  when 
shorn  of  their  comrade  P)  are  admirably  con- 
trasted. And  in  line  four  there  is  a  marked 
subsidiary  M,  which  again  was  announced 
in  line  two.  I  stop  from  weariness,  for  more 
might  yet  be  said. 

My  next  example  was  recently  quoted 
from  Shakespeare  as  an  example  of  the 
poet's  colour  sense.  Now,  I  do  not  think 
literature  has  anything  to  do  with  colour, 
or  poets  anyway  the  better  of  such  a  sense ; 
and  I  instantly  attacked  this  passage,  since 
"purple "  was  the  word  that  had  so  pleased 
the  writer  of  the  article,  to  see  if  there  might 
not  be  some  literary  reason  for  its  use.  It 
will  be  seen  that  I  succeeded  amply;  and  1 
am  bound  to  say  I  think  the  passage  ex- 
ceptional in  Shakespeare — exceptional,  in- 

205 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

deed,  in  literature;  but  it  was  not  1  who 
chose  it. 

"  The  BaRge  she  sat  iN,  like  a  BURNished  throNe 
BURNt  oN  the  water :  the  POOP  was  BeateN  gold, 
PURPle  the  sails  and  so  PUR*  Fumed  that      *per 
The  wiNds  were  love-sick  with  them."  ' 

It  may  be  asked  why  I  have  put  the  F  of 
"perfumed"  in  capitals;  and  I  reply,  because 
this  change  from  P  to  F  is  the  completion  of 
that  from  B  to  P,  already  so  adroitly  carried 
out.  Indeed,  the  whole  passage  is  a  monu- 
ment of  curious  ingenuity;  and  it  seems 
scarce  worth  while  to  indicate  the  subsidi- 
ary S,  L,  and  W.  In  the  same  article,  a  sec- 
ond passage  from  Shakespeare  was  quoted, 
once  again  as  an  example  of  his  colour  sense : 

"A  mole  cinque-spotted  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip."^ 

It  is  very  curious,  very  artificial,  and  not 
worth  while  to  analyse  at  length:  I  leave  it 
to  the  reader.  But  before  1  turn  my  back  on 
Shakespeare,  1  should  like  to  quote  a  pas- 
sage, for  my  own  pleasure,  and  for  a  very 
model  of  every  technical  art: 

*  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
'  Cymbeline. 
2o6 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

"  But  in  the  wind  and  tempest  of  her  frown, 

W.  P.  V.'  F.  (st)  (ow) 
Distindion  with  a  loud  and  powerful  fan, 

W.  P.  F.  (st)  (ow)  L 
Puffing  at  all,  winnows  the  light  away; 

W.  P.  F.  L 
And  what  hath  mass  and  matter  by  itself 

W.  F.  L.  M.  X. 
Lies  rich  in  virtue  and  unmingled."  ^ 

V.  L.  M. 

From  these  delicate  and  choice  writers  I 
turned  with  some  curiosity  to  a  player  of 
the  big  drum  —  Macaulay.  1  had  in  hand  the 
two-volume  edition,  and  1  opened  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  volume.  Here  was 
what  I  read: 

"The  violence  of  revolutions  is  generally  proportioned 
to  the  degree  of  the  maladministration  which  has  pro- 
duced them.  It  is  therefore  not  strange  that  the  govern- 
ment of  Scotland,  having  been  during  many  years  greatly 
more  corrupt  than  the  government  of  England,  should 
have  fallen  with  a  far  heavier  ruin.  The  movement  against 
the  last  king  of  the  house  of  Stuart  was  in  England  con- 
servative, in  Scotland  destruftive.  The  English  complained 
not  of  the  law,  but  of  the  violation  of  the  law." 

This  was  plain-sailing  enough;  it  was  our 
old  friend  PVF,  floated  by  the  liquids  in  a 

■The  Vis  in  "of" 

'  Troilus  and  Cressida, 

207 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

body ;  but  as  I  read  on,  and  turned  the  page, 
and  still  found  PVF  with  his  attendant  liq- 
uids, I  confess  my  mind  misgave  me  utter- 
ly. This  could  be  no  trick  of  Macaulay's;  it 
must  be  the  nature  of  the  English  tongue.  In 
a  kind  of  despair,  1  turned  half-way  through 
the  volume;  and  coming  upon  his  lordship 
dealing  with  General  Cannon,  and  fresh  from 
Claverhouse  and  Killiecrankie,  here,  with 
elucidative  spelling,  was  my  reward: 

"  Meanwhile  the  disorders  of  Kannon's  Kamp  went  on 
inKreasing.  He  Kalied  a  Kouncil  of  war  to  Konsider  what 
Kourse  it  would  be  advisable  to  taKe.  But  as  soon  as  the 
Kouncil  had  met,  a  preliminary  Kuestion  was  raised.  The 
army  was  almost  eKsKlusively  a  Highland  army.  The  re- 
cent viKtory  had  been  won  eKsKlusively  by  Highland 
warriors.  Great  chie/s  who  had  brought  siKs  or  Seren  hun- 
dred yighting  men  into  the/ield  did  not  think  it  /air  that 
they  should  be  outvoted  by  gentlemen  /rom  Ireland,  and 
/rom  the  Low  Kountries,  who  bore  indeed  King  James's 
Kommission,  and  were  Kalied  Kolonelsand  Kaptains,  but 
who  were  Kolonels  without  regiments  and  Kaptains  with- 
out Kompanies.  " 

A  moment  of  FV  in  all  this  world  of  K's ! 
It  was  not  the  English  language,  then,  that 
was  an  instrument  of  one  string,  but  Macau- 
lay  that  was  an  incomparable  dauber. 

It  was  probably  from  this  barbaric  love  of 
208 


STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

repeating  the  same  sound,  rather  than  from 
any  design  of  clearness,  that  he  acquired  his 
irritating  habit  of  repeating  words;  I  say  the 
one  rather  than  the  other,  because  such  a 
trick  of  the  ear  is  deeper-seated  and  more 
original  in  man  than  any  logical  considera- 
tion. Few  writers,  indeed,  are  probably  con- 
scious of  the  length  to  which  they  push  this 
melody  of  letters.  One,  writing  very  dili- 
gently, and  only  concerned  about  the  mean- 
ing of  his  words  and  the  rhythm  of  his 
phrases,  was  struck  into  amazement  by  the 
eager  triumph  with  which  he  cancelled  one 
expression  to  substitute  another.  Neither 
changed  the  sense;  both  being  monosylla- 
bles, neither  could  affed  the  scansion;  and 
it  was  only  by  looking  back  on  what  he  had 
already  written  that  the  mystery  was  solved : 
the  second  word  contained  an  open  A,  and 
for  nearly  half  a  page  he  had  been  riding  that 
vowel  to  the  death. 

In  pradice,  1  should  add,  the  ear  is  not  al- 
ways so  exading;  and  ordinary  writers,  in 
ordinary  moments,  content  themselves  with 
avoiding  what  is  harsh,  and  here  and  there, 
upon  a  rare  occasion,  buttressing  a  phrase, 

209 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

or  linking  two  together,  with  a  patch  of  as- 
sonance or  a  momentary  jingle  of  allitera- 
tion. To  understand  how  constant  is  this 
preoccupation  of  good  writers,  even  where 
its  results  are  least  obtrusive,  it  is  only  nec- 
essary to  turn  to  the  bad.  There,  indeed,  you 
will  find  cacophony  supreme,  the  rattle  of 
incongruous  consonants  only  relieved  by  the 
jaw-breaking  hiatus,  and  whole  phrases  not 
to  be  articulated  by  the  powers  of  man. 

Conclusion. —  We  may  now  briefly  enu- 
merate the  elements  of  style.  We  have,  pe- 
culiar to  the  prose  writer,  the  task  of  keeping 
his  phrases  large,  rhythmical,  and  pleasing 
to  the  ear,  without  ever  allowing  them  to 
fall  into  the  strictly  metrical:  peculiar  to  the 
versifier,  the  task  of  combining  and  contrast- 
ing his  double,  treble,  and  quadruple  pat- 
tern, feet  and  groups,  logic  and  metre  —  har- 
monious in  diversity:  common  to  both,  the 
task  of  artfully  combining  the  prime  elements 
of  language  into  phrases  that  shall  be  musi- 
cal in  the  mouth;  the  task  of  weaving  their 
argument  into  a  texture  of  committed 
phrases  and  of  rounded  periods  —  but  this 
particularlybindinginthecaseof  prose:  and, 


STYLE  IN  LITERA  TURE 

again  common  to  both,  the  task  of  choosing 
apt,  explicit,  and  communicative  words. 
We  begin  to  see  now  what  an  intricate  affair 
is  any  perfed;  passage;  how  many  faculties, 
whether  of  taste  or  pure  reason,  must  be 
held  upon  the  stretch  to  make  it;  and  why, 
when  it  is  made,  it  should  afford  us  so  com- 
plete a  pleasure.  From  the  arrangement  of 
according  letters,  which  is  altogether  ara- 
besque and  sensual,  up  to  the  architedure  of 
the  elegant  and  pregnant  sentence,  which  is 
a  vigorous  aft  of  the  pure  intellect,  there  is 
scarce  a  faculty  in  man  but  has  been  exer- 
cised. We  need  not  wonder,  then,  if  perfect 
sentences  are  rare,  and  perfect  pages  rarer. 


Ill 

A  NOTE  ON  REALISM' 

[TYLE  is  the  invariable  mark  of  any 
master;  and  for  the  student  who 
'  does  not  aspire  so  high  as  to  be 
numbered  with  the  giants,  it  is  still  the  one 
quality  in  which  he  may  improve  himself  at 
will.  Passion,  wisdom,  creative  force,  the 
power  of  mystery  or  colour,  are  allotted  in 
the  hour  of  birth,  and  can  be  neither  learned 
nor  simulated.  But  the  just  and  dexterous 
use  of  what  qualities  we  have,  the  propor- 
tion of  one  part  to  another  and  to  the  whole, 
the  elision  of  the  useless,  the  accentuation 
of  the  important,  and  the  preservation  of  a 
uniform  charader  from  end  to  end  —  these, 
which  taken  together  constitute  technical 
perfedion,  are  to  some  degree  within  the 
reach  of  industry  and  intellectual  courage. 
What  to  put  in  and  what  to  leave  out; 
whether  some  particular  fad  be  organically 
'  First  published  in  the  Magazine  of  Art  in  1883. 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

necessary  or  purely  ornamental;  whether, 
if  it  be  purely  ornamental,  it  may  not  weak- 
en or  obscure  the  general  design;  and  final- 
ly, whether,  if  we  decide  to  use  it,  we  should 
do  so  grossly  and  notably,  or  in  some  con- 
ventional disguise:  are  questions  of  plastic 
style  continually  rearising.  And  the  sphinx 
that  patrols  the  highways  of  executive  art 
has  no  more  unanswerable  riddle  to  pro- 
pound. 

In  literature  (from  which  1  must  draw  my 
instances)  the  great  change  of  the  past  cen- 
tury has  been  effected  by  the  admission  of 
detail.  It  was  inaugurated  by  the  romantic 
Scott;  and  at  length,  by  the  semi-romantic 
Balzac  and  his  more  or  less  wholly  unro- 
mantic  followers,  bound  like  a  duty  on  the 
novelist.  For  some  time  it  signified  and  ex- 
pressed a  more  ample  contemplation  of  the 
conditions  of  man's  life;  but  it  has  recently 
(at  least  in  France)  fallen  into  a  merely  tech- 
nical and  decorative  stage,  which  it  is,  per- 
haps, still  too  harsh  to  call  survival.  With  a 
movement  of  alarm,  the  wiser  or  more  timid 
begin  to  fall  a  little  back  from  these  extrem- 
ities; they  begin   to   aspire   after  a   more 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

naked,  narrative  articulation;  after  the  suc- 
cind,  the  dignified,  and  the  poetic;  and  as 
a  means  to  this,  after  a  general  lightening  of 
this  baggage  of  detail.  After  Scott  we  be- 
held the  starveling  story  —  once,  in  the 
hands  of  Voltaire,  as  abstrad  as  a  parable 
—  begin  to  be  pampered  upon  fads.  The  in- 
troduction of  these  details  developed  a  par- 
ticular ability  of  hand ;  and  that  ability,  child- 
ishly indulged,  has  led  to  the  works  that 
now  amaze  us  on  a  railway  journey.  A  man 
of  the  unquestionable  force  of  M.  Zola  spends 
himself  on  technical  successes.  To  afford  a 
popular  flavour  and  attrad  the  mob,  he  adds 
a  steady  current  of  what  1  may  be  allowed 
to  call  the  rancid.  That  is  exciting  to  the 
moralist;  but  what  more  particularly  inter- 
ests the  artist  is  this  tendency  of  the  ex- 
treme of  detail,  when  followed  as  a  princi- 
ple, to  degenerate  into  mere  feux-de-joie  of 
literary  tricking.  The  other  day  even  M. 
Daudet  was  to  be  heard  babbling  of  audible 
colours  and  visible  sounds. 

This  odd  suicide  of  one  branch  of  the 
realists  may  serve  to  remind  us  of  the  faft 
which  underlies  a  very  dusty  conflift  of  the 

214 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

critics.  All  representative  art,  which  can  be 
said  to  live,  is  both  realistic  and  ideal;  and 
the  realism  about  which  we  quarrel  is  a  mat- 
ter purely  of  externals.  It  is  no  especial  cul- 
tus  of  nature  and  veracity,  but  a  mere  whim 
of  veering  fashion,  that  has  made  us  turn 
our  back  upon  the  larger,  more  various,  and 
more  romantic  art  of  yore.  A  photographic 
exactitude  in  dialogue  is  now  the  exclusive 
fashion;  but  even  in  the  ablest  hands  it  tells 
us  no  more  —  I  think  it  even  tells  us  less  — 
than  Moliere,  wielding  his  artificial  medium, 
has  told  to  us  and  to  all  time  of  Alceste  or 
Orgon,  Dorine  or  Chrysale.  The  historical 
novel  is  forgotten.  Yet  truth  to  the  conditions 
of  man's  nature  and  the  conditions  of  man's 
life,  the  truth  of  literary  art,  is  free  of  the 
ages.  It  may  be  told  us  in  a  carpet  comedy, 
in  a  novel  of  adventure,  or  a  fairy  tale.  The 
scene  may  be  pitched  in  London,  on  the 
sea-coastof  Bohemia,  or  away  on  the  moun- 
tains of  Beulah.  And  by  an  odd  and  lumi- 
nous accident,  if  there  is  any  page  of  litera- 
ture calculated  to  awake  the  envy  of  M.  Zola, 
it  must  be  that  Troilus  and  Cr&ssida  which 
Shakespeare,  in  a  spasm  of  unmanly  anger 

215 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

with  the  world,  grafted  on  the  heroic  story 
of  the  siege  of  Troy. 

This  question  of  realism,  let  it  then  be 
clearly  understood,  regards  not  in  the  least 
degree  the  fundamental  truth,  but  only  the 
technical  method,  of  a  work  of  art.  Be  as 
ideal  or  as  abstrad  as  you  please,  you  will 
be  none  the  less  veracious;  but  if  you  be 
weak,  you  run  the  risk  of  being  tedious  and 
inexpressive;  and  if  you  be  very  strong  and 
honest,  you  may  chance  upon  a  masterpiece. 

A  work  of  art  is  first  cloudily  conceived 
in  the  mind;  during  the  period  of  gestation 
it  stands  more  clearly  forward  from  these 
swaddling  mists,  puts  on  expressive  linea- 
ments, and  becomes  at  length  that  most 
faultless,  but  also,  alas!  that  incommunica- 
ble product  of  the  human  mind,  a  perfeded 
design.  On  the  approach  to  execution  all  is 
changed.  The  artist  must  now  step  down, 
don  his  working  clothes,  and  become  the 
artisan.  He  now  resolutely  commits  his  airy 
conception,  his  delicate  Ariel,  to  the  touch 
of  matter;  he  must  decide,  almost  in  a 
breath,  the  scale,  the  style, the  spirit,  and  the 
particularity  of  execution  of  his  whole  design. 
216 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

The  engendering  idea  of  some  works  is 
stylistic;  a  technical  preoccupation  stands 
them  instead  of  some  robuster  principle  of 
life.  And  with  these  the  execution  is  but 
play;  for  the  stylistic  problem  is  resolved 
beforehand,  and  all  large  originality  of  treat- 
ment wilfully  foregone.  Such  are  the  verses, 
intricately  designed,  which  we  have  learnt 
to  admire,  with  a  certain  smiling  admira- 
tion, at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lang  and  Mr.  Dob- 
son;  such,  too,  are  those  canvases  where 
dexterity  or  even  breadth  of  plastic  style 
takes  the  place  of  piftorial  nobility  of  de- 
sign. So,  it  may  be  remarked,  it  was  easier 
to  begin  to  write  Esmond  than  Vanity  Fair, 
since,  in  the  first,  the  style  was  didated  by 
the  nature  of  the  plan;  and  Thackeray,  a 
man  probably  of  some  indolence  of  mind, 
enjoyed  and  got  good  profit  of  this  economy 
of  effort.  But  the  case  is  exceptional.  Usual- 
ly in  all  works  of  art  that  have  been  con- 
ceived from  within  outwards,  and  gener- 
ously nourished  from  the  author's  mind,  the 
moment  in  which  he  begins  to  execute  is 
one  of  extreme  perplexity  and  strain.  Art- 
ists of  indifferent  energy  and  an  imperfed 

217 


ESSA  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

devotion  to  their  own  ideal  make  this  un- 
grateful effort  once  for  all;  and,  having 
formed  a  style,  adhere  to  it  through  life.  But 
those  of  a  higher  order  cannot  rest  content 
with  a  process  which,  as  they  continue  to 
employ  it,  must  infallibly  degenerate  to- 
wards the  academic  and  the  cut-and-dried. 
Every  fresh  work  in  which  they  embark  is 
the  signal  for  a  fresh  engagement  of  the 
whole  forces  of  their  mind;  and  the  chang- 
ing views  which  accompany  the  growth  of 
their  experience  are  marked  by  still  more 
sweeping  alterations  in  the  manner  of  their 
art.  So  that  criticism  loves  to  dwell  upon 
and  distinguish  the  varying  periods  of  a 
Raphael,  a  Shakespeare,  or  a  Beethoven. 

It  is,  then,  first  of  all,  at  this  initial  and 
decisive  moment  when  execution  is  begun, 
and  thenceforth  only  in  a  less  degree,  that 
the  ideal  and  the  real  do  indeed,  like  good 
and  evil  angels,  contend  for  the  direction  of 
the  work.  Marble,  paint,  and  language,  the 
pen,  the  needle,  and  the  brush,  all  have  their 
grossnesses,  their  ineffable  impotences,  their 
hours,  if  1  may  so  express  myself,  of  insub- 
ordination. It  is  the  work  and  it  is  a  great 
ai8 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

part  of  the  delight  of  any  artist  to  contend 
with  these  unruly  tools,  and  now  by  brute 
energy,  now  by  witty  expedient,  to  drive 
and  coax  them  to  effed  his  will.  Given  these 
means,  so  laughably  inadequate,  and  given 
the  interest,  the  intensity,  and  the  multi- 
plicity of  the  aftual  sensation  whose  effed: 
he  is  to  render  with  their  aid,  the  artist  has 
one  main  and  necessary  resource  which  he 
must,  in  every  case  and  upon  any  theory, 
employ.  He  must,  that  is,  suppress  much 
and  omit  more.  He  must  omit  what  is  tedi- 
ous or  irrelevant,  and  suppress  what  is  tedi- 
ous and  necessary.  But  such  fads  as,  in  re- 
gard to  the  main  design,  subserve  a  variety 
of  purposes,  he  will  perforce  and  eagerly  re- 
tain. And  it  is  the  mark  of  the  very  highest 
order  of  creative  art  to  be  woven  exclusively 
of  such.  There,  any  fad  that  is  registered  is 
contrived  a  double  or  a  treble  debt  to  pay, 
and  is  at  once  an  ornament  in  its  place,  and 
a  pillar  in  the  main  design.  Nothing  would 
find  room  in  such  a  picture  that  did  not 
serve,  at  once,  to  complete  the  composition, 
to  accentuate  the  scheme  of  colour,  to  dis- 
tinguish the  planes  of  distance,  and  to  strike 

219 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  note  of  the  selected  sentiment;  nothing 
would  be  allowed  in  such  a  story  that  did 
not,  at  the  same  time,  expedite  the  progress 
of  the  fable,  build  up  the  charaders,  and 
strike  home  the  moral  or  the  philosophical 
design.  But  this  is  unattainable.  As  a  rule, 
so  far  from  building  the  fabric  of  our  works 
exclusively  with  these,  we  are  thrown  into 
a  rapture  if  we  think  we  can  muster  a 
dozen  or  a  score  of  them,  to  be  the  plums 
of  our  confedion.  And  hence,  in  order  that 
the  canvas  may  be  filled  or  the  story  pro- 
ceed from  point  to  point,  other  details  must 
be  admitted.  They  must  be  admitted,  alas! 
upon  a  doubtful  title;  many  without  mar- 
riage robes.  Thus  any  work  of  art,  as  it  pro- 
ceeds towards  completion,  too  often  —  I  had 
almost  written  always  —  loses  in  force  and 
poignancy  of  main  design.  Our  little  air  is 
swamped  and  dwarfed  among  hardly  rele- 
vant orchestration;  our  little  passionate 
story  drowns  in  a  deep  sea  of  descriptive 
eloquence  or  slipshod  talk. 

But  again,  we  are  rather  more  tempted  to 
admit  those  particulars  which  we  know  we 
can  describe;  and  hence  those  most  of  all 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

which,  having  been  described  very  often, 
have  grown  to  be  conventionally  treated  in 
the  pradice  of  our  art.  These  we  choose,  as 
the  mason  chooses  the  acanthus  to  adorn  his 
capital,  because  they  come  naturally  to  the 
accustomed  hand.  The  old  stock  incidents 
and  accessories,  tricks  of  workmanship  and 
schemes  of  composition  (all  being  admirably 
good,  or  they  would  long  have  been  forgot- 
ten) haunt  and  tempt  our  fancy,  offer  us 
ready-made  but  not  perfectly  appropriate 
solutions  for  any  problem  that  arises,  and 
wean  us  from  the  study  of  nature  and  the 
uncompromising  practice  of  art.  To  strug- 
gle, to  face  nature,  to  find  fresh  solutions, 
and  give  expression  to  fads  which  have  not 
yet  been  adequately  or  not  yet  elegantly  ex- 
pressed, is  to  run  a  little  upon  the  danger  of 
extreme  self-love.  Difficulty  sets  a  high  price 
upon  achievement;  and  the  artist  may  easily 
fall  into  the  error  of  the  French  naturalists, 
and  consider  any  faft  as  welcome  to  admis- 
sion if  it  be  the  ground  of  brilliant  handi- 
work ;  or,  again,  into  the  error  of  the  modern 
landscape-painter,  who  is  apt  to  think  that 
difficulty  overcome  and  science  well  dis- 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

played  can  take  the  place  of  what  is,  after  all, 
the  one  excuse  and  breath  of  art — charm.  A 
little  further,  and  he  will  regard  charm  in  the 
light  of  an  unworthy  sacrifice  to  prettiness, 
and  the  omission  of  a  tedious  passage  as  an 
infidelity  to  art. 

We  have  now  the  matter  of  this  difference 
before  us.  The  idealist,  his  eye  singly  fixed 
upon  the  greater  outlines,  loves  rather  to  fill 
up  the  interval  with  detail  of  the  conven- 
tional order,  briefly  touched,  soberly  sup- 
pressed in  tone,  courting  negled.  But  the 
realist,  with  a  fine  intemperance,  will  not 
suffer  the  presence  of  anything  so  dead  as  a 
convention;  he  shall  have  all  fiery,  all  hot- 
pressed  from  nature,  all  charadered  and 
notable,  seizing  the  eye.  The  style  that  be- 
fits either  of  these  extremes,  once  chosen, 
brings  with  it  its  necessary  disabilities  and 
dangers.  The  immediate  danger  of  the  realist 
is  to  sacrifice  the  beauty  and  significance  of 
the  whole  to  local  dexterity,  or,  in  the  insane 
pursuit  of  completion,  to  immolate  his  read- 
ers under  fads;  but  he  comes  in  the  last  re- 
sort, and  as  his  energy  declines,  to  discard 
all  design,  abjure  all  choice,  and,  with  scien- 

223 


A  NOTE  ON  REALISM 

tific  thoroughness,  steadily  to  communicate 
matter  which  is  not  worth  learning.  The 
danger  of  the  idealist  is,  of  course,  to  become 
merely  null  and  lose  all  grip  of  fad,  particu- 
larity, or  passion. 

We  talk  of  bad  and  good.  Everything,  in- 
deed, is  good  which  is  conceived  with  hon- 
esty and  executed  with  communicative  ar- 
dour. But  though  on  neither  side  is  dogma- 
tism fitting,  and  though  in  every  case  the 
artist  must  decide  for  himself,  and  decide 
afresh  and  yet  afresh  for  each  succeeding 
work  and  new  creation;  yet  one  thing  may 
be  generally  said,  that  we  of  the  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  breathing  as  we 
do  the  intelledual  atmosphere  of  our  age, 
are  more  apt  to  err  upon  the  side  of  realism 
than  to  sin  in  quest  of  the  ideal.  Upon  that 
theory  it  may  be  well  to  watch  and  corred 
our  own  decisions,  always  holding  back  the 
hand  from  the  least  appearance  of  irrelevant 
dexterity,  and  resolutely  fixed  to  begin  no 
work  that  is  not  philosophical,  passionate, 
dignified,  happily  mirthful,  or,  at  the  last 
and  least,  romantic  in  design. 


223 


IV 


BOOKS  WHICH  HAVE 
INFLUENCED  ME" 

'HE  Editor^  has  somewhat  insid- 
iously hiid  a  trap  for  his  correspond- 
ents, the  question  put  appearing  at 
first  so  innocent,  truly  cutting  so  deep,  it  is 
not,  indeed,  until  after  some  reconnaissance 
and  review  that  the  writer  awakes  to  find 
himself  engaged  upon  something  in  the  na- 
ture of  autobiography,  or,  perhaps  worse, 
upon  a  chapter  in  the  life  of  that  little,  beau- 
tiful brother  whom  we  once  all  had,  and 
whom  we  have  all  lost  and  mourned,  the 
man  we  ought  to  have  been,  the  man  we 
hoped  to  be.  But  when  word  has  been  passed 
(even  to  an  editor),  it  should,  if  possible,  be 
kept;  and  if  sometimes  I  am  wise  and  say 
too  little,  and  sometimes  weak  and  say  too 
much,  the  blame  must  lie  at  the  door  of  the 
person  who  entrapped  me. 

'  First  published  in  the  British  IVeckly,  May  13,  1887. 
^  Of  the  British  lVeeklj>. 


THE  INFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

The  most  influential  books,  and  the  truest 
in  their  influence,  are  works  of  fiftion.  They 
do  not  pin  the  reader  to  a  dogma,  which  he 
must  afterwards  discover  to  be  inexaft ;  they 
do  not  teach  him  a  lesson,  which  he  must 
afterwards  unlearn.  They  repeat,  they  rear- 
range, they  clarify  the  lessons  of  life;  they 
disengage  us  from  ourselves,  they  constrain 
us  to  the  acquaintance  of  others;  and  they 
show  us  the  web  of  experience,  not  as  we 
can  see  it  for  ourselves,  but  with  a  singular 
change — that  monstrous,  consuming  ^^o  of 
ours  being,  for  the  nonce,  struck  out.  To  be 
so,  they  must  be  reasonably  true  to  the  hu- 
man comedy ;  and  any  work  that  is  so  serves 
the  turn  of  instrudion.  But  the  course  of  our 
education  is  answered  best  by  those  poems 
and  romances  where  we  breathe  a  magnan- 
imous atmosphere  of  thought  and  meet  gen- 
erous and  pious  characters.  Shakespeare  has 
served  me  best.  Few  living  friends  have  had 
upon  me  an  influence  so  strong  for  good  as 
Hamlet  or  Rosalind.  The  last  charafter,  al- 
ready well  beloved  in  the  reading,  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  see,  I  must  think,  in  an  im- 
pressionable hour,  played  by  Mrs.  Scott  Sid- 

22S 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

dons.  Nothing  has  ever  more  moved,  more 
delighted,  more  refreshed  me;  nor  has  the 
influence  quite  passed  away.  Kent's  brief 
speech  over  the  dying  Lear  had  a  great  effed 
upon  my  mind,  and  was  the  burthen  of  my 
reflexions  for  long,  so  profoundly,  so  touch- 
ingly  generous  did  it  appear  in  sense,  so 
overpowering  in  expression.  Perhaps  my 
dearest  and  best  friend  outside  of  Shake- 
speare is  D'Artagnan — the  elderly  D'Artag- 
nanof  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.  1  know  not 
a  more  human  soul,  nor,  in  his  way,  a  finer;  I 
shall  be  very  sorry  for  the  man  who  is  so 
much  of  a  pedant  in  morals  that  he  cannot 
learn  from  the  Captain  of  Musketeers.  Lastly, 
1  must  name  the  Pilgrim 's  Progress,  a  book 
that  breathes  of  every  beautiful  and  valuable 
emotion. 

But  of  works  of  art  little  can  be  said ;  their 
influence  is  profound  and  silent,  like  the  in- 
fluence of  nature;  they  mould  by  conta6l; 
we  drink  them  up  like  water,  and  are  bet- 
tered, yet  know  not  how.  It  is  in  books  more 
specifically  didadic  that  we  can  follow  out 
the  effeft,  and  distinguish  and  weigh  and 
compare.  A  book  which  has  been  very  influ- 
226 


THE  I  NFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

ential  upon  me  fell  early  into  my  hands,  and 
so  may  stand  first,  though  I  think  its  influ- 
ence was  only  sensible  later  on,  and  perhaps 
still  keeps  growing,  for  it  is  a  book  not  easily 
outlived :  the  Essais  of  Montaigne.  That  tem- 
perate and  genial  picture  of  life  is  a  great  gift 
to  place  in  the  hands  of  persons  of  to-day; 
they  will  find  in  these  smiling  pages  a  maga- 
zine of  heroism  and  wisdom,  all  of  an  antique 
strain;  they  will  have  their  "linen  decen- 
cies" and  excited  orthodoxies  fluttered,  and 
will  (if  they  have  any  gift  of  reading)  per- 
ceivethat  these  have  not  been  fluttered  with- 
out some  excuse  and  ground  of  reason;  and 
(again  if  they  have  any  gift  of  reading)  they 
will  end  by  seeing  that  this  old  gentleman 
was  in  a  dozen  ways  a  finer  fellow,  and  held 
in  a  dozen  ways  a  nobler  view  of  life,  than 
they  or  their  contemporaries. 

The  next  book,  in  order  of  time,  to  influ- 
ence me,  was  the  New  Testament,  and  in 
particular  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mat- 
thew. I  believe  it  would  startle  and  move 
any  one  if  they  could  make  a  certain  effort  of 
imagination  and  read  it  freshly  like  a  book, 
not  droningly  and  dully  like  a  portion  of  the 

227 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

Bible.  Any  one  would  then  be  able  to  see  in 
it  those  truths  which  we  are  all  courteously 
supposed  to  know  and  all  modestly  refrain 
from  applying.  But  upon  this  subjed  it  is 
perhaps  better  to  be  silent. 

1  come  next  to  Whitman's  Leaves  of 
Grass,  a  book  of  singular  service,  a  book 
which  tumbled  the  world  upside  down  for 
me,  blew  into  space  a  thousand  cobwebs 
of  genteel  and  ethical  illusion,  and,  having 
thus  shaken  my  tabernacle  of  lies,  set  me 
back  again  upon  a  strong  foundation  of  all 
the  original  and  manly  virtues.  But  it  is, 
once  more,  only  a  book  for  those  who  have 
the  gift  of  reading.  1  will  be  very  frank — I 
believe  it  is  so  with  all  good  books  except, 
perhaps,  fidion.  The  average  man  lives,  and 
must  live,  so  wholly  in  convention,  that 
gunpowder  charges  of  the  truth  are  more 
apt  to  discompose  than  to  invigorate  his 
creed.  Either  he  cries  out  upon  blasphemy 
and  indecency,  and  crouches  the  closer 
round  that  little  idol  of  part-truths  and  part- 
conveniences  which  is  the  contemporary 
deity,  or  he  is  convinced  by  what  is  new, 
forgets  what  is  old,  and  becomes  truly  blas- 
228 


THE  I  NFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

phemous  and  indecent  himself.  New  truth  is 
only  useful  to  supplement  the  old;  rough 
truth  is  only  wanted  to  expand,  not  to  de- 
stroy, our  civil  and  often  elegant  conven- 
tions. He  who  cannot  judge  had  better  stick 
to  fidion  and  the  daily  papers.  There  he  will 
get  little  harm,  and,  in  the  first  at  least,  some 
good. 

Close  upon  the  back  of  my  discovery  of 
Whitman,  1  came  under  the  influence  of 
Herbert  Spencer.  No  more  persuasive  rabbi 
exists,  and  few  better.  How  much  of  his  vast 
strudure  will  bear  the  touch  of  time,  how 
much  is  clay  and  how  much  brass,  it  were 
too  curious  to  inquire.  But  his  words,  if  dry, 
are  always  manly  and  honest;  there  dwells 
in  his  pages  a  spirit  of  highly  abstrad  joy, 
plucked  naked  like  an  algebraic  symbol  but 
still  joyful;  and  the  reader  will  find  there  a 
caput  mortiium  of  piety,  with  little  indeed  of 
its  loveliness,  but  with  most  of  its  essentials ; 
and  these  two  qualities  make  him  a  whole- 
some, as  his  intelledual  vigour  makes  him  a 
bracing,  writer.  I  should  be  much  of  a  hound 
if  1  lost  my  gratitude  to  Herbert  Spencer. 

Goethe's  Life,  by  Lewes,  had  a  great  im- 

229 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

portance  for  me  when  it  first  fell  into  my 
hands  —  a  strange  instance  of  the  partiality 
of  man's  good  and  man's  evil.  1  know  no 
one  whom  I  less  admire  than  Goethe;  he 
seems  a  very  epitome  of  the  sins  of  genius, 
breaking  open  the  doors  of  private  life,  and 
wantonly  wounding  friends,  in  that  crown- 
ing offence  of  IVerther,  and  in  his  own  char- 
ader  a  mere  pen-and-ink  Napoleon,  con- 
scious of  the  rights  and  duties  of  superior 
talents  as  a  Spanish  inquisitor  was  conscious 
of  the  rights  and  duties  of  his  office.  And  yet 
in  his  fine  devotion  to  his  art,  in  his  honest 
and  serviceable  friendship  for  Schiller,  what 
lessons  are  contained!  Biography,  usually 
so  false  to  its  office,  does  here  for  once  per- 
form for  us  some  of  the  work  of  fidion,  re- 
minding us,  that  is,  of  the  truly  mingled  tis- 
sue of  man's  nature,  and  how  huge  faults 
and  shining  virtues  cohabit  and  persevere  in 
the  same  charader.  History  serves  us  well 
to  this  eflfed,  but  in  the  originals,  not  in  the 
pages  of  the  popular  epitomiser,  who  is 
bound,  by  the  very  nature  of  his  task,  to 
make  us  feel  the  difference  of  epochs  instead 
of  the  essential  identity  of  man,  and  even  in 
230 


THE  INFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

the  originals  only  to  those  who  can  recog- 
nise their  own  human  virtues  and  defeats  in 
strange  forms,  often  inverted  and  under 
strange  names,  often  interchanged.  Martial 
is  a  poet  of  no  good  repute,  and  it  gives  a 
man  new  thoughts  to  read  his  works  dispas- 
sionately, and  find  in  this  unseemly  jester's 
serious  passages  the  image  of  a  kind,  wise, 
and  self-res pefting  gentleman.  It  is  custom- 
ary, I  suppose,  in  reading  Martial,  to  leave 
out  these  pleasant  verses;  1  never  heard  of 
them,  at  least,  until  I  found  them  for  myself; 
and  this  partiality  is  one  among  a  thousand 
things  that  help  to  build  up  our  distorted 
and  hysterical  conception  of  the  great  Ro- 
man Empire. 

This  brings  us  by  a  natural  transition  to  a 
very  noble  book — the  Meditations  of  Marcus 
Aurelius.  The  dispassionate  gravity,  the 
noble  forgetfulness  of  self,  the  tenderness  of 
others,  that  are  there  expressed  and  were 
practised  on  so  great  a  scale  in  the  life  of  its 
writer,  make  this  book  a  book  quite  by  it- 
self. No  one  can  read  it  and  not  be  moved. 
Yet  it  scarcely  or  rarely  appeals  to  the  feel- 
ings— those  very  mobile,  those  not  very 

231 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

trusty  parts  of  man.  Its  address  lies  further 
back:  its  lesson  comes  more  deeply  home; 
when  you  have  read,  you  carry  away  with 
you  a  memory  of  the  man  himself;  it  is  as 
though  you  had  touched  a  loyal  hand,  looked 
into  brave  eyes,  and  made  a  noble  friend; 
there  is  another  bond  on  you  thenceforward, 
binding  you  to  life  and  to  the  love  of  virtue. 
Wordsworth  should  perhaps  come  next. 
Every  one  has  been  influenced  by  Words- 
worth, and  it  is  hard  to  tell  precisely  how.  A 
certain  innocence,  a  rugged  austerity  of  joy, 
a  sight  of  the  stars,  "the  silence  that  is  in  the 
lonely  hills,"  something  of  the  cold  thrill  of 
dawn,  cling  to  his  work  and  give  it  a  partic- 
ular address  to  what  is  best  in  us,  1  do  not 
know  that  you  learn  a  lesson;  you  need  not 
—  Mill  did  not — agree  with  any  one  of  his 
beliefs ;  and  yet  the  spell  is  cast.  Such  are  the 
best  teachers :  a  dogma  learned  is  only  a  new 
error — the  old  one  was  perhaps  as  good; 
but  a  spirit  communicated  is  a  perpetual 
possession.  These  best  teachers  climb  be- 
yond teaching  to  the  plane  of  art;  it  is  them- 
selves, and  what  is  best  in  themselves,  that 
they  communicate. 
232 


THE  I  NFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

I  should  never  forgive  myself  if  1  forgot 
The  Egoist.  It  is  art,  if  you  like,  but  it  be- 
longs purely  to  didaaic  art,  and  from  all  the 
novels  1  have  read  (and  1  have  read  thou- 
sands) stands  in  a  place  by  itself.  Here  is  a 
Nathan  for  the  modern  David ;  here  is  a  book 
to  send  the  blood  into  men's  faces.  Satire,  the 
angry  pidure  of  human  faults,  is  not  great 
art;  we  can  all  be  angry  with  our  neighbour; 
what  we  want  is  to  be  shown,  not  his  de- 
feds,  of  which  we  are  too  conscious,  but  his 
merits,  to  which  we  are  too  blind.  And  The 
Egoist  is  a  satire;  so  much  must  be  allowed ; 
but  it  is  a  satire  of  a  singular  quality,  which 
tells   you   nothing  of  that  obvious  mote, 
which  is  engaged  from  first  to  last  with  that 
invisible  beam.  It  is  yourself  that  is  hunted 
down;  these  are  your  own  faults  that  are 
dragged  into  the  day  and  numbered,  with 
lingering  relish,  with  cruel  cunning  and  pre- 
cision. A  young  friend  of  Mr.  Meredith's  (as 
1  have  the  story)  came  to  him  in  an  agony. 
"This  is  too  bad  of  you,"  he  cried.  "  Will- 
oughbyisme!"  "No,  my  dear  fellow,"  said 
the  author;  "he  is  all  of  us."  I  have  read  The 
Egoist  five  or  six  times  myself,  and  I  mean  to 

233 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

read  it  again;  for  I  am  like  the  young  friend 
of  the  anecdote — I  think  Willoughby  an  un- 
manly but  a  very  serviceable  exposure  of 
myself. 

I  suppose,  when  1  am  done,  1  shall  find 
that  I  have  forgotten  much  that  was  most 
influential,  as  1  see  already  1  have  forgotten 
Thoreau,  and  Hazlitt,  whose  paper  "On  the 
Spirit  of  Obligations  "  was  a  turning-point  in 
my  life,  and  Penn,  whose  little  book  of 
aphorisms  had  a  brief  but  strong  eflfeft  on 
me,  and  Mitford's  Tales  of  Old  Japan, 
wherein  llearnedforthefirst  time  the  proper 
attitude  of  any  rational  man  to  his  country's 
laws  —  a  secret  found,  and  kept,  in  the  Asi- 
atic islands.  That  1  should  commemorate  all 
is  more  than  1  can  hope  or  the  Editor  could 
ask.  It  will  be  more  to  the  point,  after  having 
said  so  much  upon  improving  books,  to  say 
a  word  or  two  about  the  improvable  reader. 
The  gift  of  reading,  as  1  have  called  it,  is  not 
very  common,  nor  very  generally  under- 
stood. It  consists,  first  of  all,  in  a  vast  intel- 
lectual endowment  —  a  free  grace,  1  find  I 
must  call  it —  by  which  a  man  rises  to  under- 
stand that  he  is  not  pundually  right,  nor 

234 


THE  JNFL  UENCE  OF  BOOKS 

those  from  whom  he  differs  absolutely 
wrong.  He  may  hold  dogmas;  he  may  hold 
them  passionately;  and  he  may  know  that 
others  hold  them  but  coldly,  or  hold  them 
differently,  or  hold  them  not  at  all.  Well,  if 
he  has  the  gift  of  reading,  these  others  will 
be  full  of  meat  for  him.  They  will  see  the 
other  side  of  propositions  and  the  other  side 
of  virtues.  He  need  not  change  his  dogma 
for  that,  but  he  may  change  his  reading  of 
that  dogma,  and  he  must  supplement  and 
correct  his  deductions  from  it.  A  human 
truth,  which  is  always  very  much  a  lie,  hides 
as  much  of  life  as  it  displays.  It  is  men  who 
hold  another  truth,  or,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
perhaps,  a  dangerous  lie,  who  can  extend 
our  restricted  field  of  knowledge,  and  rouse 
our  drowsy  consciences.  Something  that 
seems  quite  new,  or  that  seems  insolently 
false  or  very  dangerous,  is  the  test  of  a 
reader,  if  he  tries  to  see  what  it  means,  what 
truth  excuses  it,  he  has  the  gift,  and  let  him 
read.  If  he  is  merely  hurt,  or  offended,  or  ex- 
claims upon  his  author's  folly,  he  had  better 
take  to  the  daily  papers;  he  will  never  be  a 
reader. 

235 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

And  here,  with  the  aptest  illustrative 
force,  after  I  have  laid  down  my  part-truth, 
I  must  step  in  with  its  opposite.  For,  after  all, 
we  are  vessels  of  a  very  limited  content.  Not 
all  men  can  read  all  books;  it  is  only  in  a 
chosen  few  that  any  man  will  find  his  ap- 
pointed food;  and  the  fittest  lessons  are  the 
most  palatable,  and  make  themselves  wel- 
come to  the  mind.  A  writer  learns  this  early, 
and  it  is  his  chief  support;  he  goes  on  un- 
afraid, laying  down  the  law;  and  he  is  sure 
at  heart  that  most  of  what  he  says  is  demon- 
strably false,  and  much  of  a  mingled  strain, 
and  some  hurtful,  and  very  little  good  for 
service;  but  he  is  sure  besides  that  when  his 
words  fall  into  the  hands  of  any  genuine 
reader,  they  will  be  weighed  and  winnowed, 
and  only  that  which  suits  will  be  assimi- 
lated; and  when  they  fall  into  the  hands  of 
one  who  cannot  intelligently  read,  they 
come  there  quite  silent  and  inarticulate,  fall- 
ing upon  deaf  ears,  and  his  secret  is  kept  as 
if  he  had  not  written. 


i^6 


SWISS  NOTES 


2- 


I 


HEALTH  AND  MOUNTAINS 

^HERE  has  come  a  change  in  medi- 
cal opinion,  and  a  change  has  fol- 
lowed in  the  lives  of  sick  folk.  A 
year  or  two  ago  and  the  wounded  soldiery 
of  mankind  were  all  shut  up  together  in 
some  basking  angle  of  the  Riviera,  walking 
a  dusty  promenade  or  sitting  in  dusty  olive 
yards  within  earshot  of  the  interminable 
and  unchanging  surf — idle  among  spirit- 
less idlers;  not  perhaps  dying,  yet  hardly 
living  either,  and  aspiring,  sometimes 
fiercely,  after  livelier  weather  and  some 
vivifying  change.  These  were  certainly 
beautiful  places  to  live  in,  and  the  climate 
was  wooing  in  its  softness.  Yet  there  was 
a  later  shiver  in  the  sunshine;  you  were  not 
certain  whether  you  were  being  wooed; 
and  these  mild  shores  would  sometimes 
seem  to  you  to  be  the  shores  of  death.  There 
was  a  lack  of  a  manly  element;  the  air  was 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

not  reaftive;  you  might  write  bits  of  poetry 
and  practise  resignation,  but  you  did  not 
feel  that  here  was  a  good  spot  to  repair  your 
tissue  or  regain  your  nerve.  And  it  appears, 
after  all,  that  there  was  something  just  in 
these  appreciations.  The  invalid  is  now 
asked  to  lodge  on  wintry  Alps;  a  ruder  air 
shall  medicine  him ;  the  demon  of  cold  is  no 
longer  to  be  fled  from,  but  bearded  in  his 
den.  For  even  Winter  has  his  "dear  domes- 
tic cave ,"  and  in  those  places  where  he  may 
be  said  to  dwell  for  ever  tempers  his  aus- 
terities. 

Any  one  who  has  travelled  westward  by 
the  great  transcontinental  railroad  of  Amer- 
ica must  remember  the  joy  with  which 
he  perceived,  after  the  tedious  prairies  of 
Nebraska  and  across  the  vast  and  dismal 
moorlands  of  Wyoming,  a  few  snowy 
mountain  summits  along  the  southern  sky. 
It  is  among  these  mountains  in  the  new 
State  of  Colorado,  that  the  sick  man 
may  find,  not  merely  an  alleviation  of  his 
ailments,  but  the  possibility  of  an  adive 
life  and  an  honest  livelihood.  There,  no 
longer  as  a  lounger  in  a  plaid,  but  as  a 
240 


HEALTH  AND  MOUNTAINS 

working  farmer,  sweating  at  his  work,  he 
may  prolong  and  begin  anew  his  life,  in- 
stead of  the  bath-chair,  the  spade;  instead 
of  the  regulated  walk,  rough  journeys  in  the 
forest,  and  the  pure,  rare  air  of  the  open 
mountains  for  the  miasma  of  the  sick  room 
—  these  are  the  changes  offered  him,  with 
what  promise  of  pleasure  and  of  self-resped, 
with  what  a  revolution  in  all  his  hopes  and 
terrors,  none  but  an  invalid  can  know.  Res- 
ignation, the  cowardice  that  apes  a  kind 
of  courage  and  that  lives  in  the  very  air  of 
health  resorts,  is  cast  aside  at  a  breath  of 
such  a  prospeft.  The  man  can  open  the 
door;  he  can  be  up  and  doing;  he  can  be  a 
kind  of  a  man  after  all  and  not  merely  an 
invalid. 

But  it  is  a  far  cry  to  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. We  cannot  all  of  us  go  farming  in 
Colorado;  and  there  is  yet  a  middle  term, 
which  combines  the  medical  benefits  of  the 
new  system  with  the  moral  drawbacks  of 
the  old.  Again  the  invalid  has  to  lie  aside 
from  life  and  its  wholesome  duties;  again 
he  has  to  be  an  idler  among  idlers;  but  this 
time   at  a  great    altitude,    far  among  the 

241 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 

mountains,  with  the  snow  piled  before  his 
door  and  the  frost  tlowers  every  morning  on 
his  window.  The  mere  fad  is  tonic  to  his 
nerves.  His  choice  of  a  phice  of  wintering 
has  somehow  to  his  own  eyes  the  air  of  an 
a(5l  of  bold  contrad;  and,  since  he  has  wil- 
fully sought  low  temperatures,  he  is  not  so 
apt  to  shudder  at  a  touch  of  chill.  He  came 
for  that,  he  looked  for  it,  and  he  throws  it 
from  him  with  the  thought. 

A  long  straight  reach  of  valley,  wall-like 
mountains  upon  either  hand  that  rise  higher 
and  higher  and  shoot  up  new  summits  the 
higher  you  climb;  a  few  noble  peaks  seen 
even  from  the  valley;  a  village  of  hotels;  a 
world  of  black  and  white  —  black  pine- 
woods,  clinging  to  the  sides  of  the  valley, 
and  white  snow  flouring  it,  and  papering  it 
between  the  pinewoods,  and  covering  ail 
the  mountains  with  a  dazzling  curd;  add  a 
few  score  invalids  marching  to  and  fro  upon 
the  snowy  road,  or  skating  on  the  ice-rinks, 
possibly  to  music,  or  sitting  under  sunshades 
by  the  door  of  the  hotel — and  you  have  the 
larger  features  of  a  mountain  sanatorium. 
A  certain  furious  river  runs  curving  down 
242 


HEAL  TH  AND  MO  U NT  A  INS 

the  valley;  its  pace  never  varies,  it  has  not  a 
pool  for  as  far  as  you  can  follow  it;  and  its 
unchanging,  senseless  hurry  is  strangely 
tedious  to  witness.  It  is  a  river  that  a  man 
could  grow  to  hate.  Day  after  day  breaks 
with  the  rarest  gold  upon  the  mountain 
spires,  and  creeps,  growing  and  glowing, 
down  into  the  valley.  From  end  to  end  the 
snow  reverberates  the  sunshine ;  from  end  to 
end  the  air  tingles  with  the  light,  clear  and 
dry  like  crystal.  Only  along  the  course  of  the 
river,  but  high  above  it,  there  hangs  far  into 
the  noon,  one  waving  scarf  of  vapour.  It 
were  hard  to  fancy  a  more  engaging  feature 
in  a  landscape ;  perhaps  it  is  harder  to  believe 
that  delicate,  long-lasting  phantom  of  the 
atmosphere,  a  creature  of  the  incontinent 
stream  whose  course  it  follows.  By  noon 
the  sky  is  arrayed  in  an  unrivalled  pomp  of 
colour  —  mild  and  pale  and  melting  in  the 
north,  but  towards  the  zenith,  dark  with  an 
intensity  of  purple  blue.  What  with  this 
darkness  of  heaven  and  the  intolerable  lus- 
tre of  the  snow,  space  is  reduced  again  to 
chaos.  An  English  painter,  coming  to  France 
late  in  life,  declared  with  natural  anger  that 

243 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

"the  values  were  all  wrong."  Had  he  got 
among  the  Alps  on  a  bright  day  he  might 
have  lost  his  reason.  And  even  to  any  one 
who  has  looked  at  landscape  with  any  care, 
and  in  any  way  through  the  spectacles  of 
representative  art,  the  scene  has  a  charader 
of  insanity.  The  distant  shining  mountain 
peak  is  here  beside  your  eye ;  the  neighbour- 
ing dull  coloured  house  in  comparison  is  miles 
away;  the  summit,  which  is  all  of  splendid 
snow,  is  close  at  hand;  the  nigh  slopes, 
which  are  black  with  pine  trees,  bear  it  no 
relation,  and  might  be  in  another  sphere. 
Here  there  are  none  of  those  delicate  grada- 
tions, those  intimate,  misty  joinings-on  and 
spreadings-out  into  the  distance,  nothing 
of  that  art  of  air  and  light  by  which  the  face 
of  nature  explains  and  veils  itself  in  climes 
which  we  may  be  allowed  to  think  more 
lovely.  A  glaring  piece  of  crudity,  where 
everything  that  is  not  white  is  a  solecism 
and  defies  the  judgment  of  the  eyesight;  a 
scene  of  blinding  definition;  a  parade  of 
daylight,  almost  scenically  vulgar,  more 
than  scenically  trying,  and  yet  hearty  and 
healthy,  making  the  nerves  to  tighten  and 
244 


HEAL  TH  AND  MO UNTAINS 

the  mouth  to  smile:  such  is  the  winter  day- 
time in  the  Alps.  With  the  approach  of  even- 
ing all  is  changed.  A  mountain  will  sudden- 
ly intercept  the  sun;  a  shadow  fall  upon  the 
valley;  in  ten  minutes  the  thermometer  will 
drop  as  many  degrees;  the  peaks  that  are 
no  longer  shone  upon  dwindle  into  ghosts; 
and  meanwhile,  overhead,  if  the  weather  be 
rightly  charaderistic  of  the  place,  the  sky 
fades  toward  night  through  a  surprising  key 
of  colours.  The  latest  gold  leaps  from  the 
last  mountain.  Soon,  perhaps,  the  moon 
shall  rise,  and  in  her  gentler  light  the  valley 
shall  be  mellowed  and  misted,  and  here  and 
there  a  wisp  of  silver  cloud  upon  a  hilltop, 
and  here  and  there  a  warmly  glowing  win- 
dow in  a  house,  between  fire  and  starlight, 
kind  and  homely  in  the  fields  of  snow. 

But  the  valley  is  not  seated  so  high  among 
the  clouds  to  be  eternally  exempt  from 
changes.  The  clouds  gather,  black  as  ink; 
the  wind  bursts  rudely  in ;  day  after  day  the 
mists  drive  overhead,  the  snow-flakes  flut- 
ter down  in  blinding  disarray;  daily  the  mail 
comes  in  later  from  the  top  of  the  pass ;  peo- 
ple peer  through  their  windows  and  foresee 

245 


BSSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

no  end  but  an  entire  seclusion  from  Europe, 
and  death  by  gradual  dry-rot,  each  in  his 
indifferent  inn;  and  when  at  last  the  storm 
goes,  and  the  sun  comes  again,  behold  a 
world  of  unpolluted  snow,  glossy  like  fur, 
bright  like  daylight,  a  joy  to  wallowing  dogs 
and  cheerful  to  the  souls  of  men.  Or  per- 
haps from  across  storied  and  malarious  Italy, 
a  wind  cunningly  winds  about  the  moun- 
tains and  breaks,  warm  and  unclean,  upon 
our  mountain  valley.  Every  nerve  is  set  ajar; 
the  conscience  recognises,  at  a  gust,  a  load 
of  sins  and  negligences  hitherto  unknown; 
and  the  whole  invalid  world  huddles  into 
its  private  chambers,  and  silently  recognises 
the  empire  of  the  Fohn. 


246 


II 

DAVOS  IN  WINTER 

MOUNTAIN  valley  has,  at  the  best, 
fA^  a  certain  prison-like  effect  on  the 
imagination,  but  a  mountain  valley, 
an  Alpine  winter,  and  an  invalid's  weakness 
make  up  among  them  a  prison  of  the  most 
effeftive  kind.  The  roads  indeed  are  cleared, 
and  at  least  one  footpath  dodging  up  the 
hill;  but  to  these  the  health  seeker  is  rigidly 
confined.  There  are  for  him  no  cross  cuts 
over  the  field,  no  following  of  streams,  no 
unguided  rambles  in  the  wood.  His  walks 
are  cut  and  dry.  In  five  or  six  different  di- 
redions  he  can  push  as  far,  and  no  farther, 
than  his  strength  permits;  never  deviating 
from  the  fine  laid  down  for  him  and  behold- 
ing at  each  repetition  the  same  field  of 
wood  and  snow  from  the  same  corner  of  the 
road.  This,  of  itself,  would  be  a  little  trying 
to  the  patience  in  the  course  of  months ;  but 
to  this  is  added,  by  the  heaped  mantis  )f 

£41 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  snow,  an  almost  utter  absence  of  detail 
and  an  almost  unbroken  identity  of  colour. 
Snow,  it  is  true,  is  not  merely  white.  The 
sun  touches  it  with  roseate  and  golden 
lights.  Its  own  crushed  infinity  of  crystals, 
its  own  richness  of  tiny  sculpture,  fills  it, 
when  regarded  near  at  hand,  with  wonder- 
ful depths  of  coloured  shadow,  and,  though 
wintrily  transformed,  it  is  still  water,  and 
has  watery  tones  of  blue.  But,  when  all  is 
said,  these  fields  of  white  and  blots  of  crude 
black  forest  are  but  a  trite  and  staring  sub- 
stitute for  the  infinite  variety  and  pleasant- 
ness of  the  earth's  face.  Even  a  boulder, 
whose  front  is  too  precipitous  to  have  re- 
tained the  snow,  seems,  if  you  come  upon 
it  in  your  walk,  a  perfed  gem  of  colour,  re- 
minds you  almost  painfully  of  other  places, 
and  brings  into  your  head  the  delights  of 
more  Arcadian  days — the  path  across  the 
meadow,  the  hazel  dell,  the  lilies  on  the 
stream,  and  the  scents,  the  colours,  and 
the  whisper  of  the  woods.  And  scents  here 
are  as  rare  as  colours.  Unless  you  get  a  gust 
of  kitchen  in  passing  some  hotel,  you  shall 
smell  nothing  all  day  long  but  the  faint  and 
248 


o 
CO     S 

O  -2 

C 
?», 


DA  VOS  IN  WINTER 

choking  odour  of  frost.  Sounds,  too,  are 
absent :  not  a  bird  pipes,  not  a  bough  waves, 
in  the  dead,  windless  atmosphere.  If  a  sleigh 
goes  by,  the  sleigh  bells  ring,  and  that  is  all; 
you  work  all  winter  through  to  no  other  ac- 
companiment but  the  crunching  of  your 
steps  upon  the  frozen  snow. 

It  is  the  curse  of  the  Alpine  valleys  to  be 
each  one  village  from  one  end  to  the  other. 
Go  where  you  please,  houses  will  still  be  in 
sight,  before  and  behind  you,  and  to  the 
right  and  left.  Climb  as  high  as  an  invahd  is 
able,  and  it  is  only  to  spy  new  habitations 
nested  in  the  wood.  Nor  is  that  all ;  for  about 
the  health  resort  the  walks  are  besieged  by 
single  people  walking  rapidly  with  plaids 
about  their  shoulders,  by  sudden  troops  of 
German  boys  trying  to  learn  to  jodel,  and 
by  German  couples  silently  and,  as  you 
venture  to  fancy,  not  quite  happily  pursu- 
ing love's  young  dream.  You  may  perhaps 
be  an  invalid  who  likes  to  make  bad  verses 
as  he  walks  about.  Alas!  no  muse  will  suf- 
fer this  imminence  of  interruption  —  and  at 
the  second  stampede  of  jodellers  you  find 
your  modest  inspiration  fled.  Or  you  may 

249 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

only  have  a  taste  for  solitude;  it  may  try 
your  nerves  to  have  some  one  always  in 
front  whom  you  are  visibly  overtaking,  and 
some  one  always  behind  who  is  audibly 
overtaking  you,  to  say  nothing  of  a  score 
or  so  who  brush  past  you  in  an  opposite 
diredion.  it  may  annoy  you  to  take  your 
walks  and  seats  in  public  view.  Alas!  there 
is  no  help  for  it  among  the  Alps.  There  are 
no  recesses,  as  in  Gorbio  Valley  by  the  oil- 
mill;  no  sacred  solitude  of  olive  gardens  on 
the  Roccabruna-road;  no  nook  upon  Saint 
Martin's  Cape,  haunted  by  the  voice  of 
breakers,  and  fragrant  with  the  threefold 
sweetness  of  the  rosemary  and  the  sea-pines 
and  the  sea. 

For  this  publicity  there  is  no  cure,  and  no 
alleviation;  but  the  storms  of  which  you 
will  complain  so  bitterly  while  they  endure, 
chequer  and  by  their  contrast  brighten  the 
sameness  of  the  feiir-weather  scenes.  When 
sun  and  storm  contend  together —  when  the 
thick  clouds  are  broken  up  and  pierced  by 
arrows  of  golden  daylight — there  will  be 
startling  rearrangements  and  transfigura- 
tions of  the  mountain  summits.  A  sun-daz- 
250 


DA  VOS  IN  WINTER 

zling  spire  of  alp  hangs  suspended  in  mid- 
sky  among  awful  glooms  and  blackness;  or 
perhaps  the  edge  of  some  great  mountain 
shoulder  will  be  designed  in  living  gold,  and 
appear  for  the  duration  of  a  glance  bright  like 
a  constellation,  and  alone  "in  the  unappar- 
ent."  You  may  think  you  know  the  figure 
of  these  hills;  but  when  they  are  thus  re- 
vealed, they  belong  no  longer  to  the  things 
of  earth  —  meteors  we  should  rather  call 
them,  appearances  of  sun  and  air  that  en- 
dure but  for  a  moment  and  return  no  more. 
Other  variations  are  more  lasting,  as  when, 
for  instance,  heavy  and  wet  snow  has  fallen 
through  some  windless  hours,  and  the  thin, 
spiry,  mountain  pine  trees  stand  each  stock- 
still  and  loaded  with  a  shining  burthen.  You 
may  drive  through  a  forest  so  disguised, 
the  tongue-tied  torrent  struggling  silently 
in  the  cleft  of  the  ravine,  and  all  still  except 
the  jingle  of  the  sleigh  bells  and  you  shall 
fancy  yourself  in  some  untrodden  northern 
territory  —  Lapland,  Labrador,  or  Alaska. 

Or,  possibly,  you  arise  very  early  in  the 
morning;  totter  down  stairs  in  a  state  of 
somnambulism;  take  the  simulacrum  of  a 

251 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 
meal  by  the  glimmer  of  one  lamp  in  the  de- 
serted cofiFee-room;  and  find  yourself  by 
seven  o'clock  outside  in  a  belated  moonlight 
and  a  freezing  chill.  The  mail  sleigh  takes  you 
up  and  carries  you  on,  and  you  reach  the  top 
of  the  ascent  in  the  first  hour  of  the  day.  To 
trace  the  fires  of  the  sunrise  as  they  pass 
from  peak  to  peak,  to  see  the  unlit  tree- 
tops  stand  out  soberly  against  the  lighted 
sky,  to  be  for  twenty  minutes  in  a  wonder- 
land of  clear,  fading  shadows,  disappearing 
vapours,  solemn  blooms  of  dawn,  hills  half 
glorified  already  with  the  day  and  still  half 
confounded  with  the  greyness  of  the  west- 
ern heaven — these  will  seem  to  repay  you 
for  the  discomforts  of  that  early  start;  but 
as  the  hour  proceeds,  and  these  enchant- 
ments vanish,  you  will  find  yourself  upon 
the  further  side  in  yet  another  Alpine  valley, 
snow  white  and  coal  black,  with  such  an- 
other long-drawn  congeries  of  hamlets  and 
such  another  senseless  watercourse  bicker- 
ing along  the  foot.  You  have  had  your  mo- 
ment; but  you  have  not  changed  the  scene. 
The  mountains  are  about  you  like  a  trap; 
you  cannot  foot  it  up  a  hillside  and  behold 
252 


DA  VOS  IN  WINTER 

the  sea  as  a  great  plain,  but  live  in  holes  and 
corners,  and  can  change  only  one  for  an- 
other. 


s-JB 


Ill 

ALPINE  DIVERSIONS 

'HERE  will  be  no  lack  of  diversion 
in  an  Alpine  sanitarium.  The  place 
is  lialf  Englisli  to  be  sure,  the  local 
sheet  appearing  in  double  column,  text  and 
translation;  but  it  still  remains  half  German; 
and  hence  we  have  a  band  which  is  able  to 
play,  and  a  company  of  aftors  able,  as  you 
will  be  told,  to  ad.  This  last  you  will  take 
on  trust,  for  the  players,  unlike  the  local 
sheet,  confine  themselves  to  German;  and 
though  at  the  beginning  of  winter  they 
come  with  their  wig-boxes  to  each  hotel  in 
turn,  long  before  Christmas  they  will  have 
given  up  the  English  for  a  bad  job.  There 
will  follow,  perhaps,  a  skirmish  between 
the  two  races;  the  German  element  seeking, 
in  the  interest  of  their  a(ftors,  to  raise  a 
mysterious  item,  the  Kiir-taxe,  which  fig- 
ures heavily  enough  already  in  the  weekly 
bills,  the  English  element  stoutly  resisting. 


ALPINE  DIVERSIONS 

Meantime  in  the  Englishi  hotels  home- 
played  farces,  tableaux-vivants,  and  even 
balls  enliven  the  evenings;  a  charity  bazaar 
sheds  genial  consternation;  Christmas  and 
New  Year  are  solemnized  with  Pantagrue- 
lian  dinners,  and  from  time  to  time  the 
young  folks  carol  and  revolve  untunefully 
enough  through  the  figures  of  a  singing 
quadrille.  A  magazine  club  supplies  you 
with  everything,  from  the  Ojiarterly  to  the 
Sunday  at  Home.  Grand  tournaments  are 
organized  at  chess,  draughts,  billiards  and 
whist.  Once  and  again  wandering  artists 
drop  into  our  mountain  valley,  coming  you 
know  not  whence,  going  you  cannot  imag- 
ine whither,  and  belonging  to  every  degree 
in  the  hierarchy  of  musical  art,  from  the 
recognized  performer  who  announces  a  con- 
cert for  the  evening,  to  the  comic  German 
family  or  solitary  long-haired  German  bar- 
itone who  surprises  the  guests  at  dinner- 
time with  songs  and  a  colle£tion.  They  are 
all  of  them  good  to  see;  they,  at  least,  are 
moving;  they  bring  with  them  the  senti- 
ment of  the  open  road;  yesterday,  perhaps, 
they  were  in  Tyrol,  and  next  week  they 

25s 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

will  be  far  in  Lombardy,  while  all  we  sick 
folk  still  simmer  in  our  mountain  prison. 
Some  of  them,  too,  are  welcome  as  the 
flowers  in  May  for  their  own  sake;  some 
of  them  may  have  a  human  voice;  some 
may  have  that  magic  which  transforms  a 
wooden  box  into  a  song-bird,  and  what  we 
jeeringly  call  a  fiddle  into  what  we  mention 
with  respeft  as  a  violin.  From  that  grinding 
lilt,  with  which  the  blind  man,  seeking 
pence,  accompanies  the  beat  of  paddle 
wheels  across  the  ferry,  there  is  surely  a 
difference  rather  of  kind  than  of  degree  to 
that  unearthly  voice  of  singing  that  bewails 
and  praises  the  destiny  of  man  at  the  touch 
of  the  true  virtuoso.  Even  that  you  may 
perhaps  enjoy;  and  if  you  do  so  you  will 
own  it  impossible  to  enjoy  it  more  keenly 
than  here,  im  Schnee  der  Alpen.  A  hya- 
cinth in  a  pot,  a  handful  of  primroses 
packed  in  moss,  or  a  piece  of  music  by  some 
one  who  knows  the  way  to  the  heart  of  a 
violin,  are  things  that,  in  this  invariable 
sameness  of  the  snows  and  frosty  air,  sur- 
prise you  like  an  adventure.  It  is  droll,  more- 
over, to  compare  the  respeft  with  which  the 


ALPINE  DIVERSIONS 

invalids  attend  a  concert,  and  the  ready  con- 
tempt witli  wliich  they  greet  the  dinner- 
time performers.  Singing  which  they  would 
hear  with  real  enthusiasm  —  possibly  with 
tears — from  a  corner  of  a  drawing-room, 
is  listened  to  with  laughter  when  it  is  of- 
fered by  an  unknown  professional  and  no 
money  has  been  taken  at  the  door. 

Of  skating  little  need  be  said ;  in  so  snowy 
a  climate  the  rinks  must  be  intelligently 
managed;  their  mismanagement  will  lead 
to  many  days  of  vexation  and  some  petty 
quarrelling,  but  when  all  goes  well,  it  is 
certainly  curious,  and  perhaps  rather  unsafe, 
for  the  invalid  to  skate  under  a  burning 
sun,  and  walk  back  to  his  hotel  in  a  sweat, 
through  long  trads  of  glare  and  passages  of 
freezing  shadow.  But  the  peculiar  outdoor 
sport  of  this  distrid  is  tobogganing.  A 
Scotchman  may  remember  the  low  flat 
board,  with  the  front  wheels  on  a  pivot, 
which  was  called  a  hurlie ;  he  may  re- 
member this  contrivance,  laden  with  boys, 
as,  laboriously  started,  it  ran  rattling  down 
the  brae,  and  was,  now  successfully,  now 
unsuccessfully,  steered  round  the  corner  at 

257 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

the  foot;  he  may  remember  scented  summer 
evenings  passed  in  this  diversion,  and  many 
a  grazed  skin,  bloody  cockscomb,  and  neg- 
leded  lesson.  The  toboggan  is  to  the  hurhe 
what  the  sled  is  to  the  carriage;  it  is  a  hur- 
lie  upon  runners;  and  if  for  a  grating  road 
you  substitute  a  long  declivity  of  beaten 
snow  you  can  imagine  the  giddy  career  of 
the  tobogganist.  The  corred  position  is  to 
sit;  but  the  fantastic  will  sometimes  sit  hind- 
foremost,  or  dare  the  descent  upon  their  belly 
or  their  back.  A  few  steer  with  a  pair  of 
pointed  sticks,  but  it  is  more  classical  to  use 
the  feet.  If  the  weight  be  heavy  and  the  track 
smooth,  the  toboggan  takes  the  bit  between 
its  teeth;  and  to  steer  a  couple  of  full-sized 
friends  in  safety  requires  not  only  judgment 
but  desperate  exertion.  On  a  very  steep 
track,  with  a  keen  evening  frost,  you  may 
have  moments  almost  too  appalling  to  be 
called  enjoyment;  the  head  goes,  the  world 
vanishes;  your  blind  steed  bounds  below 
your  weight;  you  reach  the  foot,  with  all 
the  breath  knocked  out  of  your  body,  jarred 
and  bewildered  as  though  you  had  just  been 
subjected  to  a  railway  accident.   Another 

2S8 


ALPINE  DIVERSIONS 

element  of  joyful  horror  is  added  by  the  for- 
mation of  a  train;  one  toboggan  being  tied 
to  another,  perhaps  to  the  number  of  half  a 
dozen,  only  the  first  rider  being  allowed  to 
steer,  and  all  the  rest  pledged  to  put  up  their 
feet  and  follow  their  leader,  with  heart  in 
mouth,  down  the  mad  descent.  This,  par- 
ticularly if  the  track  begins  with  a  headlong 
plunge,  is  one  of  the  most  exhilarating  follies 
in  the  world,  and  the  tobogganing  invalid 
is  early  reconciled  to  somersaults. 

There  is  all  manner  of  variety  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  tracks,  some  miles  in  length, 
others  but  a  few  yards,  and  yet  like  some 
short  rivers,  furious  in  their  brevity.  All  de- 
grees of  skill  and  courage  and  taste  may  be 
suited  in  your  neighborhood.  But  perhaps 
the  true  way  to  toboggan  is  alone  and  at 
night.  First  comes  the  tedious  climb,  drag- 
ging your  instrument  behind  you.  Next  a 
long  breathing  space,  alone  with  snow  and 
pinewoods,  cold,  silent  and  solemn  to  the 
heart.  Then  you  push  off;  the  toboggan 
fetches  way;  she  begins  to  feel  the  hill,  to 
glide,  to  swim,  to  gallop.  In  a  breath  you 
are  out  from  under  the  pine  trees,  and  a 

259 


ESSA  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

whole  heavenful  of  stars  reels  and  flashes 
overhead.  Then  comes  a  vicious  effort;  for 
by  this  time  your  wooden  steed  is  speed- 
ing like  the  wind,  and  you  are  spinning 
round  a  corner,  and  the  whole  glittering 
valley  and  all  the  lights  in  all  the  great  hotels 
lie  for  a  moment  at  your  feet;  and  the  next 
you  are  racing  once  more  in  the  shadow  of 
the  night  with  close-shut  teeth  and  beating 
heart.  Yet  a  little  while  and  you  will  be 
landed  on  the  highroad  by  the  door  of  your 
own  hotel.  This,  in  an  atmosphere  tingling 
with  forty  degrees  of  frost,  in  a  night  made 
luminous  with  stars  and  snow,  and  girt  with 
strange  white  mountains,  teaches  the  pulse  an 
unaccustomed  tune  and  adds  a  new  excite- 
ment to  the  life  of  man  upon  his  planet. 


260 


IV 

THE  STIMULATION  OF  THE 
ALPS 

?0  any  one  who  should  come  from  a 
I  southern  sanitarium  to  the  Alps,  the 
row  of  sun-burned  faces  round  the 
table  would  present  the  first  surprise.  He 
would  begin  by  looking  for  the  invalids,  and 
he  would  lose  his  pains,  for  not  one  out  of 
five  of  even  the  bad  cases  bears  the  mark  of 
sickness  on  his  face.  The  plump  sunshine 
from  above  and  its  strong  reverberation  from 
below  colour  the  skin  like  an  Indian  climate ; 
the  treatment,  which  consists  mainly  of  the 
open  air,  exposes  even  the  sickliest  to  tan, 
and  a  tableful  of  invalids  comes,  in  a  month 
or  two,  to  resemble  a  tableful  of  hunters. 
But  although  he  may  be  thus  surprised  at  the 
first  glance,  his  astonishment  will  grow 
greater,  as  he  experiences  the  effefts  of  the 
climate  on  himself.  In  many  ways  it  is  a  try- 
ing business  to  reside  upon  the  Alps:  the 

261 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

:«'  .iinach  is  exercised,  the  appetite  often  lan- 
guishes; the  liver  may  at  times  rebel;  and 
because  you  have  come  so  far  from  metro- 
politan advantages,  it  does  not  follow  that 
you  shall  recover.  But  one  thing  is  undeni- 
able—  that  in  the  rare  air,  clear,  cold,  and 
blinding  light  of  Alpine  winters,  a  man  takes 
a  certain  troubled  delight  in  his  existence 
which  can  nowhere  else  be  paralleled.  He 
is  perhaps  no  happier,  but  he  is  stingingly 
alive.  It  does  not,  perhaps,  come  out  of  him 
in  work  or  exercise,  yet  he  feels  an  enthu- 
siasm of  the  blood  unknown  in  more  tem- 
perate climates.  It  may  not  be  health,  but  it 
is  fun. 

There  is  nothing  more  difficult  to  com- 
municate on  paper  than  this  baseless  ardour, 
this  stimulation  of  the  brain,  this  sterile  joy- 
ousness  of  spirits.  You  wake  every  morning, 
see  the  gold  upon  the  snow  peaks,  become 
filled  with  courage,  and  bless  God  for  your 
prolonged  existence.  The  valleys  are  but  a 
stride  to  you;  you  cast  your  shoe  over  the 
hilltops;  your  ears  and  your  heart  sing;  in 
the  words  of  an  unverified  quotation  from 
the  Scotch  psalms,  you  feel  yourself  fit  "  on 


STIMULA  TION  OF  THE  ALPS 

the  wings  of  all  the  winds  "  to  "  come  fly- 
ing all  abroad."  Europe  and  your  mind  are 
too  narrow  for  that  flood  of  energy.  Yet  it 
is  notable  that  you  are  hard  to  root  out  of 
your  bed;  that  you  start  forth,  singing,  in- 
deed, on  your  walk,  yet  are  unusually  ready 
to  turn  home  again;  that  the  best  of  you  is 
volatile;  and  that  although  the  restlessness 
remains  till  night,  the  strength  is  early  at  an 
end.  With  all  these  heady  jollities,  you  are 
half  conscious  of  an  underlying  languor  in 
the  body;  you  prove  not  to  be  so  well  as 
you  had  fancied;  you  weary  before  you  have 
well  begun ;  and  though  you  mount  at  morn- 
ing with  the  lark,  that  is  not  precisely  a  song 
bird's  heart  that  you  bring  back  with  you 
when  you  return  with  aching  limbs  and 
peevish  temper  to  your  inn. 

it  is  hard  to  say  wherein  it  lies,  but  this  joy 
of  Alpine  winters  is  its  own  reward.  Base- 
less, in  a  sense,  it  is  more  than  worth  more 
permanent  improvements.  The  dream  of 
health  is  perfed  while  it  lasts;  and  if,  in 
trying  to  realize  it,  you  speedily  wear  out 
the  dear  hallucination,  still  every  day,  and 
many  times  a  day,  you  are  conscious  of  a 

263 


ESS  A  YS  AND  CRITICISMS 

strength  you  scarce  possess,  and  a  delight 
in  living  as  merry  as  it  proves  to  be  transient. 
The  brightness  —  heaven  and  earth  con- 
spiring to  be  bright — the  levity  and  quiet 
of  the  air;  the  odd  stirring  silence  —  more 
stirring  than  a  tumult;  the  snow,  the  frost, 
the  enchanted  landscape:  all  have  their  part 
in  the  eflfeft  and  on  the  memory,  "  tons 
vous  tapent  siir  la  tele;  ' '  and  yet  when  you 
have  enumerated  all,  you  have  gone  no 
nearer  to  explain  or  even  to  qualify  the  deli- 
cate exhilaration  that  you  feel  —  delicate, 
you  may  say,  and  yet  excessive,  greater  than 
can  be  said  in  prose,  almost  greater  than  an 
invalid  can  bear.  There  is  a  certain  wine  of 
France  known  in  England  in  some  gaseous 
disguise,  but  when  drunk  in  the  land  of  its 
nativity  still  as  a  pool,  clean  as  river  water, 
and  as  heady  as  verse.  It  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  in  its  noble  natural  condition  this 
was  the  very  wine  of  Anjou  so  beloved  by 
Athos  in  the  "Musketeers."  Now,  if  the 
reader  has  ever  washed  down  a  liberal  sec- 
ond breakfast  with  the  wine  in  question,  and 
gone  forth,  on  the  back  of  these  dilutions, 
into  a  sultry,  sparkling  noontide,  he  will 
204 


STIMULA  TION  OF  THE  ALPS 

have  felt  an  influence  almost  as  genial,  al- 
though strangely  grosser,  than  this  fairy 
titillation  of  the  nerves  among  the  snow  and 
sunshine  of  the  Alps.  That  also  is  a  mode, 
we  need  not  say  of  intoxication,  but  of  in- 
sobriety. Thus  also  a  man  walks  in  a  strong 
sunshine  of  the  mind,  and  follows  smiling, 
insubstantial  meditations.  And  whether  he 
be  really  so  clever  or  so  strong  as  he  sup- 
poses, in  either  case  he  will  enjoy  his  chi- 
mera while  it  lasts. 

The  influence  of  this  giddy  air  displays 
itself  in  many  secondary  ways.  A  certain 
sort  of  laboured  pleasantry  has  already  been 
recognized,  and  may  perhaps  have  been  re- 
marked in  these  papers,  as  a  sort  peculiar 
to  that  climate.  People  utter  their  judgments 
with  a  cannonade  of  syllables;  a  big  word 
is  as  good  as  a  meal  to  them;  and  the  turn 
of  a  phrase  goes  further  than  humour  or 
wisdom.  By  the  professional  writer  many 
sad  vicissitudes  have  to  be  undergone.  At 
first,  he  cannot  write  at  all.  The  heart,  it 
appears,  is  unequal  to  the  pressure  of  busi- 
ness, and  the  brain,  left  without  nourish- 
ment, goes  into  a  mild  decline.  Next,  some 

265 


ESS  A  VS  AND  CRITICISMS 

power  of  work  returns  to  him,  accompanied 
by  jumping  headaches.  Last,  the  spring  is 
opened,  and  there  pours  at  once  from  his 
pen  a  world  of  blatant,  hustling  polysylla- 
bles, and  talk  so  high  as,  in  the  old  joke,  to 
be  positively  offensive  in  hot  weather.  He 
writes  it  in  good  faith  and  with  a  sense  of 
inspiration;  it  is  only  when  he  comes  to 
read  what  he  has  written  that  surprise  and 
disquiet  seize  upon  his  mind.  What  is  he  to 
do,  poor  man  }  All  his  little  fishes  talk  like 
whales.  This  yeasty  inflation,  this  stiff  and 
strutting  architecture  of  the  sentence  has 
come  upon  him  while  he  slept;  and  it  is  not 
he,  it  is  the  Alps,  who  are  to  blame.  He  is 
not,  perhaps,  alone,  which  somewhat  com- 
forts him.  Nor  is  the  ill  without  a  remedy. 
Some  day,  when  the  spring  returns,  he  shall 
go  down  a  little  lower  in  this  world,  and 
remember  quieter  infle6lions  and  more  mod- 
est language.  But  here,  in  the  meantime, 
there  seems  to  swim  up  some  outline  of  a 
new  cerebral  hygiene  and  a  good  time  com- 
ing, when  experienced  advisers  shall  send 
a  man  to  the  proper  measured  level  for  the 
ode,  the  biography,  or  the  religious  traft; 
266 


STIMULA  TION  OF  THE  ALPS 

and  a  nook  may  be  found,  between  the  sea 
and  Chimborazo,  where  Mr.  Swinburne 
shall  be  able  to  write  more  continently,  and 
Mr.  Browning  somewhat  slower. 

Is  it  a  return  of  youth,  or  is  it  a  conges- 
tion of  the  brain  }  It  is  a  sort  of  congestion, 
perhaps,  that  leads  the  invalid,  when  all 
goes  well,  to  face  the  new  day  with  such  a 
bubbling  cheerfulness.  It  is  certainly  con- 
gestion that  makes  night  hideous  with 
visions,  all  the  chambers  of  a  many-storeyed 
caravanserai,  haunted  with  vociferous  night- 
mares, and  many  wakeful  people  come 
down  late  for  breakfast  in  the  morning. 
Upon  that  theory  the  cynic  may  explain  the 
whole  affair — exhilaration,  nightmares, 
pomp  of  tongue  and  all.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  peculiar  blessedness  of  boyhood 
may  itself  be  but  a  symptom  of  the  same 
complaint,  for  the  two  effeds  are  strangely 
similar;  and  the  frame  of  mind  of  the  inva- 
lid upon  the  Alps  is  a  sort  of  intermittent 
youth,  with  periods  of  lassitude.  The  foun- 
tain of  Juventus  does  not  play  steadily  in 
these  parts;  but  there  it  plays,  and  possibly 
nowhere  else. 

267 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


■m  L9-Series  4939 


PR5488.        E74     l<i 


3   1158  00654  445E 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  376  873    6 


